Archive Utility lets you set a variety of preferences for working with ZIP files on your Mac.

Back when everything on the Internet was compressed in SIT format, I could set my Stuffit Expander preferences to automatically delete the compressed file after expanding. But now, there doesn’t seem to be a way to do the same thing with ZIP files—is there?

You actually have a surprising amount of control over how your Mac handles ZIP files with a hidden application called Archive Utility, located at /System/Library/CoreServices/Archive Utility.

Launch this program and then choose Archive Utility > Preferences to reveal a variety of choices for working with ZIP files (aka archives). You can choose the default locations for expanding and creating archives and define the action that should happen afterwards. After expanding an archive, for example, you can move the ZIP file to the trash, delete the file, or
leave the ZIP file alone.