Hello lovely Apple community,
I'm trying to open a zipped file of several ebooks, but when I try to open/unzip it, Terminal says it "cannot execute binary file." What should I do to access my books?
I'm pretty much computer illiterate, so any and all help is greatly appreciated! Thanks!
MacBook, Mac OS X (10.6.8)
I'm pretty much computer illiterate, so any and all help is greatly appreciated! Thanks!
So why are you using terminal at all?
Try just double clicking them in the finder.
Since it's saved to my desktop, I did just double-click it. Terminal opens automatically with the message.
Oh, that's how you got in terminal. Sorry about my comment above. You're launch services are "confused" (the data base that associates files with what app handles them).
In the finder single click on one the .zip files to select it. Then either use the finder File menu, Get Info or just click command-I (eye). That will bring up the finder info window for that .zip file.
In that info window there will be a section titled "Open with:" with a popup menu below it. It probably says Terminal in it. If you click the popup menu there should be a list of apps that can handle .zip's (or what the system thinks can handle .zip's). Hopefully one of them will say Archive Utility. Select it and click the "Change All" button below the popup menu. Now all .zip's should use Archive Utility when you double click them. That handles .zips properly.
If you don't see Archive Utility in the popup menu the last entry in that menu is "Other...". Select that and you will see a window that lets you navigate through the file system. You need to navigate to /System/Library/CoreServices. Once in there you will find Archive Utility. Select it and again you can then click the "Change All" button.
Brilliant! Following your instructions I have now successfully "archived" the files, but now where did they go? Haha. I can't find my books anywhere in Finder/on the computer now. All I can do is archive the zip file again or unarchive them with the new .cpgz it generated. *feeling foolish*
Not all .zip's are created equal! Whereever you got yours it is one that the system's Archive Utility mishandles (and creates those .cpgz files instead of unzipping -- should be in same directory as the .zip). So you are going to need a third party utility. Below or a couple of popular ones:
Aha! That makes sense. I asked my friend who gave me the file in the first place and he said to use 7zip, so I'm off to try that. Thanks so much for all your help!
Ok, you're welcome. 7zip explains it. I believe those utilities I mentioned will handle 7zip files.
Terminal unable to unzip...
