Member Avatar for ishola

hi all,

I am new to mac, and can not install .sit, .hgz and .bin files, i have however been fortunate with.dmg files. pls i will appriciate any help from anyone.
Ishola

  • 5 Contributors
  • 5 Replies
  • 672 Views
  • 1 Year Discussion Span
  • Latest Post Latest Post by zachburdick

Dani AI

Generated

Quick primer and practical steps (building on points from and ). Those three extensions come from older Mac distribution methods and mean different things: .sit is a StuffIt archive, .hqx is a BinHex‑encoded file, and .bin is ambiguous — it can be a MacBinary payload, a BinHex wrapper, or a CD/disc image (often paired with a .cue). Diagnosing which one it is will save a lot of wasted attempts.

A fast way to inspect a problematic file is the Terminal file tool and a quick hex peek:

file ~/Downloads/filename.bin
hexdump -C ~/Downloads/filename.bin | head

file often reports things like “BinHex”, “StuffIt”, “ISO 9660 CD-ROM”, or simply “data.” If it says BinHex/StuffIt, a modern archive utility that understands legacy Mac formats (for example, The Unarchiver) will usually decode it. If file reports ISO/CD data or there’s a .cue alongside the .bin, treat it as a disc image.

Common, practical actions not covered above:

  • For disc images (.bin + .cue): convert or extract to ISO with bchunk (Homebrew/MacPorts), then mount with hdiutil:
# install bchunk if needed, then:
bchunk disk.bin disk.cue disk
# result like disk01.iso — mount with:
hdiutil attach disk01.iso
  • If double‑click opens the wrong app (Excel, TextEdit), change the app via Finder → Open With (or Get Info) and pick an archiver that knows legacy Mac formats.
  • If extraction repeatedly fails, check file size and look for partial downloads (.part/.download) or double extensions like example.sit.hqx; re-download from a reliable mirror when possible.

This targets the actual file contents first (diagnose), then pick the right tool. It avoids guessing what the .bin is and prevents trying the wrong extractor.

Recommended Answers

All 5 Replies

Member Avatar for John A

First of all, what errors are you getting when you double-click on .sit .hqx and .bin files? Make sure Stuffit is installed, because you will need it to expand these types of files:

These types of files are just compression formats to make downloads faster. The reason you do not need Stuffit to open .dmg files is because Mac OS X Finder has built-in support for them.

Member Avatar for kc0arf

Hi,

He is exactly right, although I thought expander came with OS X. Perhaps you need a more recent copy of it.

Christian

Member Avatar for Chris789

I am having a similar problem. When I open up the .bin extensions, the file opens up in Microsoft Excel... I have no idea how to install certain programs this way

Member Avatar for John A

Do you have Stuffit installed? If so, you will probably need to change the default application that opens .bin files.

Select the .bin file, and choose "Get Info" from the File menu. Beneath "Open With", select Stuffit Expander (if it's not listed, you may have to choose "other", and locate it in the Applications or Utilities folder). Then hit "Change All..." if you want to make sure that all .bin files open with Stuffit. Good luck.

Member Avatar for zachburdick

Most of the time I download Stuffit just to makes sure I can open these files. If you have more knowledge with Unix/Linux you can decompile those files in the Terminal. But even so the GUI is very easy to use and also easy to trouble shoot.

--Zac

Be a part of the DaniWeb community

We're a friendly, industry-focused community of developers, IT pros, digital marketers, and technology enthusiasts meeting, networking, learning, and sharing knowledge.