RetroRescue

Rescue vintage Mac files for the modern world.

RetroRescue is a macOS app that opens, preserves, and converts classic Macintosh files. Drop a disk image, a StuffIt archive, or a folder of old Mac files — RetroRescue cracks them open, lets you browse the contents with full classic Mac fidelity, stores them safely in a .retrovault bundle, and converts them to modern formats.

🌐 retrorescue.app

What it does

1. Open Anything — Disk images (.dsk, .img, .smi, .toast, .iso), archives (.sit, .cpt, .hqx, .bin, .dd), MacBinary, BinHex, HFS/HFS+ volumes. If it's from a classic Mac, RetroRescue can open it.
2. Browse & Preview — See files with their original icons, type/creator codes, and resource forks. Preview PICT images, play sounds, inspect icons, read documents.
3. Safe Storage — The .retrovault bundle preserves everything: data forks, resource forks, type/creator codes, Finder metadata. Survives iCloud, Dropbox, ZIP, FAT32, email — nothing gets stripped.
4. Convert & Export — Batch-convert to modern formats: PICT → PNG, snd → WAV, bitmap fonts → TTF, ClarisWorks → DOCX, MacWrite → Markdown.

The .retrovault format

A macOS bundle that safely stores classic Mac files on modern filesystems:

MyArchive.retrovault/
├── vault.sqlite              ← metadata database
├── manifest.json             ← human-readable vault info
├── files/
│   ├── 0001/
│   │   ├── data              ← data fork (raw bytes)
│   │   ├── rsrc              ← resource fork (raw bytes)
│   │   └── meta.json         ← type/creator, dates, Finder flags
│   └── ...
├── thumbnails/               ← generated previews
└── sources/                  ← original disk images/archives (optional)

No extended attributes. No special filesystem features. Survives everything.

Requirements

• macOS 14+ (Sonoma) on Apple Silicon
• Swift 5.9+

Building

cd retrorescue
swift build
swift run RetroRescue

Or open in Xcode:

open Package.swift

Architecture

Sources/
├── RetroRescue/         # SwiftUI app
├── ContainerCracker/    # Archive & disk image unpacking
├── VaultEngine/         # .retrovault read/write/query
├── PreviewEngine/       # Type-aware file previewing
└── ConversionEngine/    # Format converters (PICT→PNG, snd→WAV, etc.)

Powered by

RetroRescue wraps battle-tested open-source tools:

• The Unarchiver / unar — StuffIt, Compact Pro, DiskDoubler, BinHex, MacBinary
• hfsutils / libhfs — HFS volume access
• resource_dasm — Resource fork conversion
• ResForge — Resource fork parsing (Swift, MIT)
• macOS sips — PICT image conversion
• ffmpeg — Legacy QuickTime codec transcoding

License

GNU General Public License v3.0 — see LICENSE.

Copyright (C) 2026 Bruno van Branden (Simplinity)