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I didn't change anything on my computer, but it just started expanding zip files into the Downloads folder, instead of what it used to do: expand them into the folder where the zip file itself is located.
I found this question in the Apple support site, but nobody seems to have figured it out over the past year... Archive Utility expands to Downloads fold… - Apple Community
(This is for MacBook Pro 13", OS X 10.14)
Are you using Safari to download the file? If so, then this just may be a bug in macOS/Safari since the "Open safe files automatically" setting in Safari is a Safari only option so macOS may be hardwired to expect the downloads to always be in the Downloads folder when automatically "opening" the safe files which also includes extracting (aka "opening") the contents of archive files (this would be a bug if true). macOS these days does not always work as expected if you deviate too much from the defaults. You may want to disable this setting in Safari so you can manually open the archives.
Or you can try using a third party browser instead.
Archive Utility expands to Downloads folder no matter what
