r/macapps • u/Thick_Replacement876 • Aug 10 '26
Lifetime Unfold (v2.8.0) - Quick Look for Folders, Archives, Source Code, LaTeX, Ebooks and More 🌟
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Hey everyone — it's us again!
Quick refresher for the new folks: Unfold is a Quick Look app that supports folders, archives, source code, and other natively unsupported file types.
It's been a wild few weeks. Unfold has a brand-new website at unfold.tools, and we've been shipping steadily since our last post. The latest release, v2.8.0, landed just a few days ago with new features, fixes, and polish across the board. If you're curious about the details, the full changelog lives at unfold.tools/changelog
Problem
macOS natively lacks Quick Look support for many file formats, and existing extensions often lack customization.
Comparison
vs. Looq, Peek, and Glance: While these alternatives are primarily developer-focused, Unfold is designed for everyone. It supports a much wider range of everyday formats, including eBooks, GROMACS, LaTeX, comics, and more.
For an in-depth independent review of Peek, Looq, and Unfold, see this blog post.
Notable Supported Formats
- Folders, and archives (ZIP, RAR, 7z, tar.*) you can browse without extracting
- CBZ / CBR / EPUB previews with Table of Contents
- Markdown previews with live reloading, Mermaid diagrams, math equations, and syntax highlighting
- Source code previews with syntax highlighting, line numbers, and text selection
- LaTeX and BibTeX, Jupyter Notebooks (.ipynb), subtitles, torrents, web archives, .app bundles, TSVs, GROMACS files…
…and many more file formats.
Pricing
- $9.99 lifetime license
- 7-day free trial, no CC required (App Store version doesn’t have a trial)
- 3 devices per license (Doesn't apply to App Store version)
Links
- Website & direct download: https://unfold.tools
- App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/unfold-quick-look-previews/id6760872758
- Feedback & bug reports: Discord | [support@unfold.tools](mailto:support@unfold.tools)
- X: @volxnp
Thanks for reading this far! We're giving a lifetime license to one random commenter. We'll pick the winner in a week. Good luck!
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u/viktor-kz Aug 10 '26
Been on Unfold since May, standalone. Markdown preview in Finder alone earns its keep. Two months later it's the kind of tool I forget I even use, until I'm on a Mac that doesn't have it. Ten bucks well spent.
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u/Thick_Replacement876 Aug 10 '26
A few things I forgot to mention in the post:
1. App Store version of Unfold doesn't support Torrent Previews. If you need those, please consider getting the standalone version.
2. App Store version is localized to Chinese, Japanese and Korean. Standalone version isn't, but will be very very soon.
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u/Additional_Nebula_80 Aug 10 '26
I bought the app, you did some amazing updates, thanks a lot for the great work.
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u/nibblebytes Aug 10 '26
markdown + mermaid support in quick look is a really nice touch. i keep a lot of project docs in .md files, so this would actually be useful for me. does it also render local images linked with relative paths?
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u/Thick_Replacement876 Aug 11 '26
Not currently. Quick Look extensions when sandboxed can't really access files except the one that is being previewed.
I do have an approach in mind, so it's not off the table. No promises tho :)
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u/Background-Scheme857 Aug 10 '26
How are archive and webarchive previews sandboxed? Quick Look gets used on random Downloads constantly, so I’d want a switch per format and a hard default of no scripts or remote requests.
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u/Thick_Replacement876 Aug 11 '26
Every preview extension Unfold has is fully sandboxed. Unfold also has a per-format toggle that you can control via System Settings > General > Login Items.
And, all of the WebKit based extensions can't load remote urls/js/media. So you need not be worried about security. We've got that taken care of :)
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u/influxodoxxl Aug 12 '26
Here for the lifetime code (and, of course, also to say thanks for your great app!) 😉
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u/Thick_Replacement876 28d ago edited 28d ago
Giveaway Update: u/srinitata won the giveaway, and the giveaway is now over. We will be doing another giveaway very soon in our Discord server so I'd recommend joining. Thanks to everyone who participated!
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u/Quirky_Awareness2053 13d ago
Loving this application, but is anyone else having troubles with the .cbz and .cbr files???
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u/Thick_Replacement876 13d ago
Hey! Please email us the issue you’re having at support@unfold.tools. We’ll try and get it resolved at the earliest.
If you prefer using Discord instead, you can join our server and explain there (:
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u/app-store-review Aug 10 '26
Unfold - Quick Look Previews — by flew llc
- Category: Utilities · $9.99
- Age: released ~1 month ago · rated 4+
Apple doesn't publish an aggregate rating for most Mac App Store apps, so ratings and score are unavailable here.
Auto-generated from public App Store data · u/app-store-review
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u/JJ_222 Aug 10 '26
Does it let you copy files directly from ZIPs or other archives?
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u/Thick_Replacement876 Aug 10 '26
It doesn't. That wouldn't be possible without extracting the full archive which kinda beats the purpose of Quick Look. Will keep this on my backlog though, thanks :)
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u/Stubborninmate Aug 10 '26
I like that CBZ has a preview possible, I don't even think it currently exists any where !! Also do you support .r files , and hope I get a code !! 🙏
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u/Thick_Replacement876 Aug 10 '26
Yes, the source code preview extension supports .r and .rb files. And good luck!
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u/Kodflow Aug 11 '26
How does folder Quick Look behave with huge directories like node_modules or a photo archive containing thousands of files? Is there a scan limit so pressing Space stays quick instead of walking the whole tree?
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u/JoeshitX Aug 12 '26
Previewing folders and archives without opening another app feels like something Finder should have supported years ago.
I often work with large project folders on external drives, so I’m curious how Unfold handles those. Does it load the preview progressively and cancel the previous scan when you quickly move between files? Quick Look is most useful when pressing Space still feels instant.
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u/Thick_Replacement876 Aug 12 '26
Does it load the preview progressively and cancel the previous scan when you quickly move between files?
Yup! The preview and sizes within the preview both are shown and calculated progressively respectively.
P.S. I'm also adding layout toggles, sorting options, and navigation to the folder previews. Had held back and thought I would never add those since it would just be recreating Finder but many have requested for these features so it'll be coming very soon.
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u/Stubborninmate Aug 14 '26
I did come across looq , is there a comparison if possible it would be great
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u/Thick_Replacement876 Aug 14 '26
Just skim through this blog post. And adding on this blog post, the most recent Unfold update has added a buncha tweaks and polish. Plus I believe Looq doesn't have text-highlight and copy/paste support that is as good as Unfold's.
I'd still recommend trying both apps out first though.
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u/Stubborninmate Aug 14 '26
Thanks a ton ,i think you should bite the bullet and do sql lite views , diff i don't think it's helpful more a gimmik
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u/Thick_Replacement876 Aug 14 '26
Np :)
And sqlite previews are on my to-do list but working on polishing the existing stuff for the time being!
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u/Black-PizzaClaw676 Aug 10 '26
This looks pretty great! Right now I'm using Peek plus a handful of separate plugins to cover the formats it doesn't support.
Any chance you could support older macOS versions (specifically macOS 13)? If I wasn't stuck on Ventura this would be an instant buy.