Open .SIT Files In Mountain Lion For Free [OS X Tips]

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SIT Files Free

While I was researching an OS X Tips column for later this week, I came across a .sit file. Now, if you’ve been working with Macs as long as I have (my first Mac was a Performa 638 CD, just before PowerMacs showed up), you’ll know all about .sit files and how to open them.

For those of you new to Macs, especially Mountain Lion, which only seems to handle .zip file archives, you might be a bit stumped as to how to open a .sit file. Well, luckily this old guy is here to tell you how.

There are two really good apps in the Mac App Store that will manage your .sit files for you. One is the venerable Stuffit Expander, which is where .sit files came from in the first place, and the other is The Unarchiver. Both offer quick, easy .sit file expansion, and both are free. The one you choose will be totally up to you, though The Unarchiver seems to handle a few more legacy archive formats than Stuffit Expander does.

Head over to the Mac App Store and download either The Unarchiver or Stuffit Expander.

When you launch The Unarchiver, you’ll be asked where to extract stuff.

Would you like The Unarchiver to extract archives to the same folder as the archive file, or would you prefer to be asked for a destination folder for every individual archive?

Go ahead and choose Extract to the Same Folder, unless you have nothing better to do than answer your Mac’s constant questioning. You can then mess about with settings, or just click on the File menu and Unarchive your file. You can also drag a .sit file right to The Unarchiver’s Dock icon, or right click on a .sit file and choose Open With, then The Unarchiver.

The same goes for Stuffit expander – download it, let it install, and then use it to unarchive your .sit files. Easy!

Are you using OS X Mountain Lion? Got a tip you want to share with us? Drop me a line or leave a comment below.

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