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1. Mac App Show Package Contents Download
2. Show Package Contents Windows

When working at the terminal, I often use the open. Command to open a finder window showing the current working directory. But if the current directory is actually a package, like a.app application or a.vmwarevm virtual machine, open. Launches the application or the virtual machine instead. How can I open a finder window showing the contents of a specified package? Step 4: Right click on install.app and choose Show Package Contents. Step 5: Head to Contents - MacOS - install.The setup process will get started. Step 6: Click on Try select Accept and install. Step 7: Enter the pass off your Mac and wait for the process to be completed.

If you happen to be faced with a package (.pkg) or meta-package (.mpkg) file and want to inspect its contents before you initiate an install, there's a nifty OS X utility that can dump out the files contained inside for your inspection.

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Application Packages

First, I need to backtrack for a minute.

As OS X users, we're familiar with the fact that applications are actually complex folders in disguise—packages in developer lingo. OS X recognizes application packages and knows how to give them their unique icon. There is a contextual menu item, 'Show Package Contents' that allows one to drill into the guts of an application and view all its resources.

Sow Package Contents on an app.
Right click for contextual menu.

Inspecting Installer Packages

One might think, at first, that the OS X command 'Show Package Contents' will work on another package file, an installer that ends in .pkg or .mpkg. That may or may not work depending on how the package file is constructed.

Note that .mpkg files are meta-packages that may contain .pkg files inside them that may be amendable to Show Package Contents.

However, if Show Package Contents isn't provided as a contextual menu option for either type of installer, don't despair. A different kind of tool is needed to analyze it. In this case, one can use a nifty OS X command line tool called pkgutil. It extracts the contents of the package file into its component pieces and can write it all out to a folder for inspection.

Mac App Show Package Contents Download

The easiest way to get started is to do a simple expand option and write it out to a named folder. The 'man' page, of course, shows all the options. In the simplest case, the terminal commands would be:

In these examples, the destination folder will be in the same folder as the package file, but one could define a path to somewhere else.

Here's what a dump looks like for one of my .mpkg files.

Sample dump of a .mpkg file.

In researching this command, I discovered a nice GUI utility called Pacifist (OS X 10.8 or later) that can drill into, amongst others, .dmg and .pkg files. It's $20 shareware, and if one works in the above mode a lot, it could well be worth the investment. But for casual inspection, the pkgutil command is nice to know about.

The Mac Photos app is a handy way to organize all of your photos and videos in one app, but what if you want to have access to all of the original files? Sure, you can go into Photos, click on an image, and drag it to the Desktop or Downloads folder to work on it, but that’s not a helpful solution if you want to work on a lot of the master image files. (Related: How to Combine Multiple Photos Libraries Into a Single Library)

The Photos app stores all of your images in a “Photos Library.photoslibrary” package file. In this article, I’ll show how you can open the package file, find the Master folder, and then create a shortcut in the Finder window sidebar.

Creating a Shortcut to the Master Image Files
1) Click and hold on the smiling Finder icon on left side of the Dock, then select New Finder Window from the pop-up menu.

Show Package Contents Windows

2) You should see a “Pictures” shortcut in the Finder Favorites in the left sidebar. Clicking this takes you to the Pictures folder, which contains folders and library package files from the image-related apps on your Mac. On my Mac, for instance, you can see libraries from Lightroom, Photo Booth, Photos, and a screenshot app called SnapNDrag Pro (see image below):

If your Finder sidebar doesn’t include a Pictures folder, you can navigate to that folder in the Finder by selecting Go > Go To Folder… from the menu bar, typing ~/Pictures/ into the search field, then pressing Return.

3) Locate the Photos Library file, which has the Photos logo on it. You can see that file in the screenshot above.

4) Right-click (or control-click) on the Photos Library file, then select “Show Package Contents” from the menu. The Finder window should now show something similar to the screenshot below:

5) Now drag and drop the Masters folder into the Finder window sidebar in the Favorites section. This places an alias to the Photos library Masters file that is visible in any Finder window.

6) Close the Photos Library package by clicking the red “close” button in the upper left corner of the window, or use the Command – W keyboard shortcut.

Now clicking on the Masters item in the sidebar takes you to the master image files from the Photos app. These are the original full resolution files that are imported into Photos from your iPhone, SD cards, or other sources (see screenshot below).

If you ever decide that you don’t want the Masters shortcut in the Finder Favorites, just drag and drop it from the sidebar to remove it.

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