I was trying to extract the contents of a .pkg
file, and right clicking on it should usually allow the context sensitive Show Package Contents
option. However, it does not seem to show on any .pkg file I can find on my system.
I have since expanded the contents on the command line using this command:
StuffeMac:Desktop stuffe$ pkgutil --expand AirPortUtility56.pkg ./dan2/
Which worked fine, and inside this package was another .pkg
file. Right clicking on this and Show Package Contents
is back again, but only for the one I just expanded…
What's going on?
Best Answer
Show Package Contents is not for showing the contents of .pkg files, it's for showing the hidden structure for Applications (and other bundles), which are actually folders. You can use the program Pacifist to look at the contents of .pkg files.
To answer the question in your comment, here's how you can tell in Terminal. When you perform an
ls -l
command, directories have d as the first character in the line.In this example, the first two entries are bundles and the last isn't.