How can you not love a utility whose mascot/icon is a little glowing lawn grub? Keka works as advertised and has help and support pages on GitHub. A far better alternative to "The Unarchiver," especially since the latter has been turned into corporate crapware by shady publisher MacPaw, purveyor of the disreputable CleanMyMac X. Keka retails for a mere $2.99 on the Mac App Store, but if you, like me, prefer to avoid the MAS whenever possible, you can direct download from the web site and easily make a donation. I sent 'em $5 via PayPal. Always happy to support quality vendors. -SB
Although I've been having Keka on my Mac for a few years now, I've only recently started to use it extensively when I've discovered the xz (or txz) format. I've not found another free app that deals with that format.
If you don't know xz, try it and you might be amazed: I've been using 7z for nearly ten years and I thought it was the best option out there but xz can achieve half the size, and sometimes a tenth of the size of 7z (on pdfs in particular)!
The only thing is that it's not predictable on disk images: sometimes you'll gain only 100 Mb out of a 2 Gb dmg, sometimes 1 Gb depending on its content!
Well, I'm supposed to make a review about Keka, but I only use it for xz, I can't say much more, it works perfectly! I'm in the process of converting all my old zip and 7s archives to xz, thanks to Keka. :-)
Has become my standard compression/expansion app. Excellent software that I also use to secure files that I backup in the cloud.
Question to the developer: Would it be possible to mark files that are not yet completely compressed with '.part'? Whe I compress a lot of files (splitted) at once, it is hard to see which ones can already be uploaded and which ones I still need so time.
Keka is my personal favorite compression/expansion app. It works with even more archive formats than are listed here, such as .ZAD archives. It's being constantly updated. It's easy to use and reliable. I use it more often than The Unarchiver. StuffIt is a distant memory.
Version 1.1.1 is now available on the developer’s website. It fixes the problem with v. 1.1.0 in which files could not be dragged to the Keka dock icon (and perhaps other issues).
I've switched over to this app. I recommend downloading the beta version. The icons on the non-beta version are very bad especially on a retina display.
I switched to this from the Unarchiver. I actually prefer it. Download the beta version though because they've modernized the icons on the beta version. I couldn't take these icons. Just go to their website and download the beta version. It's been totally stable.
Great. SO easy & it can even add a password to a zip file. Keka lets you zip, unzip, encrypt with a password, and choose from several compression formats. I really like it. Keka does not let you view the insides of a zip file.
I give it 4 1/2 stars reserving a half star so I have something left to give if the developer adds viewing a zip file so I could add more, replace, or extract just a single file from the archive. But that is being greedy. Kaka worked great for me and was easily able to do what I wanted to be done. Recommended.
Simple, efficient, and well maintained compression app. Donation sent today in appreciation for freely providing a useful MacOS utility that I personally use often.
Nice software as opposed to its title) It's much beneficial supporting many useful formats. The app has no extra features, simple and user-friendly. One of the best in the line.
Nice software but it has issues uncompressing aliases inside packages (in 7z archives at least): they turn into empty files!
I don't know how much frequently this happens, but I uncompressed the same archive with BetterZip and it was perfect.
I wanted to use Keka, but I'm sorry, if I can't be 100% sure of the result, I'll stick to BetterZip.
Keka is DONATIONWARE. It has no cost. The only place they ask you to donate is on their website. If you donate, they don't have a fixed asking price. Therefore, I had no idea why it says $1.99 on this page at MU. It should be removed.
The software itself is very good and has a small, simple interface for doing what you want to do with both compression and decompression. It's a favorite little program.
Simple but effective compression tool. Runs rock solid in OS X 10.11.x which isn't the case The Unarchiver.
It was free in the past though but the small asking price is worth every little cent.
Recommended
I am having an issue where files that were 3 - 6 MB are zipping to over 19 - 30 MB now! I used Keka just last night to compress about 25 individual folders. I realized I need to change the wording in one pdf in them and redid it. It didn't grow in size at all, yet today when I zip, all files are over 19 - 30 MB. The 20 MB folder compresses to 19 and the 33 MB folders compress to 30! That's no compression at all. I have tried Normal and Best Compression and it's the same. It doesn't appear to be compressing at all. I have tried to contact the makers, but you cannot post a ticket without login and they are not accepting anymore registrations. THAT is another issue with this program. I donated $20 when I first downloaded it, because it was so great. I haven't used it in over a year, so downloaded newest version and it's bad. I have quit the program and restarted, but that didn't do anything either.
Keka is great, the best of them all. I love it and I love the Keka icon too.Very very easy to use. Can also create dmg and iso. The results of maximum/slow 7z compression compared to zip or rar is just mind-blowing! I just compressed 1,2 GB to just 595 MB using 7z. Using ZIP: --> 1,1 GB. Using RAR: --> 1 GB
If we would all use 7z we would save 50% of bandwith!
I can't get the "delete" (after compressing) pref to stick when I quit Keka; I can only get "move to trash" to stick.
Anybody got any suggestions? (OS X 10.6.8)
I can't get the "delete" (after compressing) pref to stick when I quit Keka; I can only get "move to trash" to stick.
Anybody got any ideas? (OS X 10.6.8)
Nice app! Especially useful for people who want to avoid the command line.
(Special thanks to the developer of rarlabs for his contribution of unrar.)
On the Keka website is a direct donation link too.
"Must Have" Utility application, It can compress many format .zip .7z also include .DMG and .iso
I Love these app , and I purchase on Mac app store to support this app.
Thank You Keka
Bigger issue is Keka creates hidden sub-folders in the folder where it extracts the archives. If there are multiple archives to extract, Keka would create multiple subfolders. The folders are in format such as .Keka-B6ED7BEE-E249-4A01-111E-C709A5A1129A. As it's hidden you don't see the folder unless you change finder to show hidden files. The issue is not only are these folder like "garbage", but some of them would contain partial files where extraction failed. I was wondering why an empty folder still shows size in several MBs. Well it's because Keka created number of these hidden folders and it doesn't delete them after it finishes or after it closes down. I don't think I can continue using the app at this time.
I'm not crazy for the bug icon :)
There is small issue with Keka when dealing with partially corrupted archives (or archives where part of the archive is missing.. The issue is if part of the archive is corrupt, Keka will offer no remedy on its own, it will show error message and completely stops without attempting to extract the rest of the archive packages (which don't have any issues).
In such a situation I would end up using The Archiver.
I hate to tell this but because I bought it on the app store it gets updated regularly and I haven't had any problems. I can archive and extract 7zip files on the fly. It seems faster than the regular mac archiver.
Nice little app, just what I wanted — a way to ZIP files without those DS_Store files cluttering things up for Windows users.
Growl support was a nice little bonus.
Thanks!
Suddenly Keka 1.0.3 is behaving weirdly on my OS 10.8.2 2.9 GHz Core i7 13” Mid-2012 MacBook Pro. Even though I have the preference set to “Close Keka when no window visible,” which has worked fine for me until now, whenever I drag something onto the Keka icon in the Dock, first the regular Keka window opens (not the Preferences window, but the regular window, which is also new behavior), and then Keka does not automatically close after the compression is complete as it used to.
Anyone else having this problem?
