Apple claims that a lot of its software is magic. Quick look really is.
You can, while browsing files on your Mac, press space to see a preview. This works for images, documents, and media files, and even has some basic editing capabilities.
It’s great, but there are all sorts of files the format doesn’t support. Fortunately, you can change that. There are tons of free apps that add new power to Quick Look — here are a few of the best.
Please note that changes made to macOS a few years ago broke many of the Quick Look plugins available online. Everything listed here works as of macOS 12 Monterey.
See what’s inside the archive
Screenshot: BetterZip via WIRED
On a Mac, open a ZIP or RAR file or any archive, which means extract everything. I like this most of the time, but sometimes I want a quick look at what’s inside an archive before opening it. BetterZip. is perfect for this.
This is a paid application that allows you to open archives, similar to opening archives in Windows. You need to pay for most of the features, but the free Quick Look plugin makes it easy to view content in any repository without having to open it. Twenty-two file formats are supported, including most you’ve heard of (and some you’ve never heard of).
Learn about apps before you run them
Quick Look doesn’t have much to say about the apps — just the file size and some copyright information.
Screenshot: Transparency via WIRED
Free app transparent adds more information, allowing you to quickly see if an application is safe and whether it is running on your system.
