Open CAB files on Mac
Open a .cab on Mac with Kernir to browse its files, or use the Mac's libarchive-based tar to list and extract supported cabinets. Kernir's CAB support is read-only. Extracting files from a cabinet does not install Windows software on macOS.
What a cabinet file is
A CAB is a container used to package files, including data distributed with Windows installers. Microsoft's cabinet documentation describes its role in installation packages and notes that files can span multiple cabinets.
You might need a CAB just to retrieve documentation, a resource or another ordinary file. That task does not require running the installer. Conversely, copying out a driver or executable does not make it usable on a different operating system.
See the contents with Terminal
For an archive in Downloads:
cd ~/Downloads
tar -tf "Files.cab"
Use the actual filename. The macOS tar reads formats through libarchive, so its name does not restrict it to TAR archives. GNU tar on Linux is a different implementation and should not be assumed to accept this command for CAB.
Check the listing for the file you need. Some installer cabinets use internal names that only make sense with the rest of the installer. An archive reader exposes the entries but does not necessarily reconstruct their eventual installation paths.
Extract to a fresh folder
mkdir "CAB output"
tar -xvf "Files.cab" -C "CAB output"
Choose a new empty destination so the extracted files do not overwrite matching work. Wait for completion and examine any errors. If an entry could not be read, an output folder containing other entries is still only a partial extraction.
Kernir's fixtures cover MSZIP cabinets and a third-party LZX example. CAB files can differ in compression, structure and filename encoding, so these examples should not be read as universal compatibility with every cabinet variant.
Browse it in Kernir
The Mac download is coming soon. You can view the source and build instructions on GitHub. These steps describe the current app workflow.
Choose File › Open… (⌘O), select the CAB, then browse or search its entries. Select the files you need and use File › Extract… (⌘E) to copy them to a chosen destination.
Kernir cannot create CAB or save an edited cabinet back in that format. Use File › Save As… (⇧⌘S) if you want a ZIP copy of readable contents. That is useful for exchanging documents, but it is not a rebuilt Windows installation package.
Missing parts and other errors
If the cabinet belongs to a set, one file may not contain all the data required for an entry. Keep related downloads together and follow the publisher's instructions. Do not assume Kernir will automatically join an arbitrary multi-cabinet set, and do not concatenate cabinet files manually as a generic repair.
For an unsupported-method or checksum error, check the download and the reader's capabilities. If you can contact the sender, request the required documents in a conventional ZIP. If the goal is to install software, ask for a macOS version instead of expecting extraction to translate a Windows application.
Kernir.dmg, signed and notarized. Requires macOS 14 or later.
Related guides
App steps were checked against Kernir source code. Command examples were checked with test archives on Linux using libarchive and the named utilities, not in a new macOS session. Updated .
