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ZIP extractor online

Browse, preview, and selectively extract files from ZIP archives.

Free & unlimited
All processing happens in your browser. No data is sent to any server.

Extracting a whole archive to get one file out of it is a habit worth breaking, especially on a machine where you would rather not leave a folder of someone else files behind. This page opens the .zip with JSZip inside the tab, reads the central directory, and shows the contents as a folder tree with a file-type icon and an uncompressed size on every entry. You can search across paths, tick individual files or whole folders, preview text files without extracting them, and download either a single file or a new ZIP containing only your selection. Several archives can be open at once and switched between.

Key facts about ZIP extractor online

Key facts about ZIP extractor online
LibraryJSZip, reading the archive in this tab from an ArrayBuffer
Formats.zip only. RAR, 7z, tar, tar.gz, bz2 and xz are not opened — those extensions appear only as icons for entries inside a ZIP
Per-entry dataFull path, file name and uncompressed size. Per archive you also get the entry count, the total uncompressed size and the compression ratio against the file on disk
Folder treePaths are rebuilt into a real tree with per-folder expand and select. Nesting deeper than six levels is flattened rather than indented further
SearchCase-insensitive substring match against the full path, so typing a folder name narrows to everything inside it
Text previewAbout 30 source and text extensions — txt, md, log, csv, json, xml, yaml, html, css, js, ts, py, java, rb, go, rs, php, sh, sql, env, ini, toml, c, cpp, h and relatives
Preview capThe first 50,000 characters of a file, which is enough to read a config or a log head without decompressing the whole thing into the page
Single-file extractionAny entry downloads on its own as a Blob, under its own file name, with no folder path attached
Partial extractionA selection smaller than the whole archive is repacked into a new ZIP named after the original with _partial appended
Full selection shortcutWhen everything is selected, the original file is handed straight to the download manager instead of being repacked — no recompression, no wait
Multiple archivesLoad several at once; each keeps its own tree, and the file counts are reported per archive
Encrypted ZIPsPassword-protected archives are not supported and will fail to open or to read their entries

What happens to your file

The archive is read into an ArrayBuffer and opened by JSZip inside this browser tab; the tree, the previews and every extracted file are produced in page memory and handed to your browser download manager as local Blobs. Nothing is uploaded, nothing is queued on a server and nothing is retained after you close the tab. That is the difference that matters on a shared or managed computer: opening an archive here leaves no extracted folder on disk and no copy on someone else infrastructure, and you can look inside an attachment before deciding whether it deserves to be unpacked at all.

About this tool

  1. 1

    Drop the .zip on the page

    Drag one or several archives in, or browse for them. Each is opened immediately and its entries counted; an invalid or encrypted file is reported rather than silently ignored.

  2. 2

    Browse the tree

    Folders expand and collapse, and every file shows its type icon and its uncompressed size. This alone answers what is actually in this attachment.

  3. 3

    Search when the archive is large

    Type part of a path to filter the tree. Searching for a folder name keeps everything inside it, which is how you find one config file among thousands of entries.

  4. 4

    Preview before extracting

    Text and source files open in a preview pane, showing their first 50,000 characters. Reading a readme or a log head often means you never need to extract anything.

  5. 5

    Select exactly what you want

    Tick individual files or whole folders, or use select all and select none as a starting point. The selected count and total size update as you go.

  6. 6

    Download the selection

    One file downloads on its own; several are repacked into a new ZIP with _partial in the name. Selecting everything hands you the original archive unchanged.

Specs & compatibility
Accepted extension.zip
Compression methodsStored and deflate, the two that cover essentially all ZIP files. Exotic methods such as bzip2 and LZMA inside a ZIP are not decompressed
EncryptionNot supported, including both legacy ZipCrypto and AES
Tree depth shown6 levels, deeper entries flattened
Preview limit50,000 characters
SelectionPer file, per folder, select all, select none
OutputsA single file, or a new ZIP of the selected files
Practical sizeThe whole archive is held in memory, so file size is bounded by what the tab can hold
Browser supportChrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari, desktop and mobile
Cost / accountFree, unlimited archives, no signup
  • Preview a readme or a log before extracting anything — it is often the only file you actually wanted.
  • The size column is the uncompressed size, so a small archive with a huge total is a compression bomb worth treating carefully.
  • Searching a path fragment is faster than expanding folders in an archive with thousands of entries.
  • Select none first, then tick what you need, when you want a small subset out of a large archive.
  • Selecting every file gives you the original archive back untouched rather than a recompressed copy, which is the fastest way to re-save an attachment.
  • Load several archives at once to compare two versions of a release by their file lists.
  • A .tar.gz is a different container and will not open here; unpack it with a tool made for tar archives.
  • Folder tree with per-file sizes
  • Path search
  • Text and source file preview
  • Per-file and per-folder selection
  • Single-file extraction
  • Partial extraction to a new ZIP
  • Several archives open at once
  • No upload, no signup
  • Checking what is inside an emailed .zip before unpacking it onto your machine.
  • Pulling one document out of a large archive without extracting the rest.
  • Reading a readme or a configuration file from inside an archive on a locked-down computer.
  • Comparing the file lists of two release archives side by side.
  • Building a smaller ZIP containing only the files a colleague needs.
  • Opening an archive on a phone or tablet where no extraction app is installed.
No. The .zip is read into an ArrayBuffer and opened by JSZip inside this browser tab. The tree, the previews and every extracted file are produced in page memory and saved locally through your browser download manager. There is no upload endpoint, no processing queue and no server-side copy, which is exactly what you want when the archive came from someone else and you are not yet sure what is in it.
No, only .zip. Those are different container formats with different compression algorithms, and supporting each one properly means shipping a separate decompressor. The file-type icons you see for rar, 7z, tar and gz apply to entries stored inside a ZIP, not to the archive you open. For a .tar.gz or a .7z, use a tool built for that format; for a RAR, the practical route is a desktop unarchiver.
No. Encrypted ZIPs, whether they use the legacy ZipCrypto scheme or AES, are not supported, and there is no place to enter a password. An encrypted archive will either fail to open or list entries whose contents cannot be read. Decrypt it with a desktop tool that supports the encryption your archive uses, then bring the plain ZIP here if you still want to browse it selectively.
A new ZIP containing only the files you ticked, named after the original with _partial added before the extension. The entries keep their original paths, so the folder structure is preserved inside the new archive. If you select a single file, it downloads on its own instead, under its own name and with no folder path. And if you select everything, the tool hands you the original archive unchanged rather than repacking it.
Text and source files, recognised by extension: txt, md, log, csv, json, xml, yaml and yml, html, css, js, jsx, ts and tsx, py, java, rb, go, rs, php, sh, sql, env, cfg, ini, toml, c, cpp and h. The preview shows the first 50,000 characters, which covers a readme, a manifest or the head of a log without pulling a very large file into the page. Images, documents and binaries have no preview and must be extracted to be opened.
The whole file is read into memory before anything is listed, so the ceiling is how much the browser tab can hold rather than a published number. Archives up to a few hundred megabytes generally open on a desktop browser; multi-gigabyte archives will not, and mobile devices run out sooner. Note that extracting a file decompresses it in memory too, so a modest ZIP containing one enormous entry can still be a problem.

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