ZIP Extractor

ZIP is the universal way to bundle files, and usually opening one is a double-click. But not always: on locked-down work computers, Chromebooks, borrowed machines or tablets, you may not be able to install or run an archive tool, and sometimes you just want to see what is inside before extracting a large download. This tool opens ZIP files in the browser, extracts what you need, and also creates new ZIP files.

Seeing what is inside

Drop a ZIP file and every file in it is listed with its path, size and date. Folders appear as part of the paths. For archives with many files, a filter box narrows the list by name. The list comes from the archive’s index, so it appears quickly even for large archives; files are only unpacked when you extract them.

Extracting files

Click the download icon next to a file to save it on its own. To take several files, tick them and download the selection as a new, smaller ZIP; all files are ticked when the archive opens. In Chrome and Edge on a computer, “Save into a folder…” writes the selected files into a folder you pick, recreating subfolders, which is the closest a browser gets to a classic “Extract all”.

International file names

ZIP files from Windows often store names in the old CP437 code page, while macOS and modern tools use UTF-8. Both are read correctly, so names with accents or non-Latin characters appear as intended. Very large archives above 4 GB use ZIP64 records, which are read too, within the memory limits of your device.

Files that cannot be extracted

Password-protected entries are listed but marked, because the tool does not handle ZIP passwords. Some archivers use rare compression methods such as BZIP2, LZMA, Zstandard or Deflate64; those entries are also marked with the method name. Nearly all ZIP files use Deflate or no compression, which work.

Creating a ZIP

Switch to “Create a ZIP”, drop the files, name the archive and choose the compression. Normal is the usual choice; Smallest saves a little more on text and data at the cost of speed; None is fastest. Photos, videos, PDFs and Office files are already compressed, so they are stored as they are regardless of the setting, which saves time without making the ZIP bigger.

Safety

Malicious archives sometimes contain paths like ../../system or absolute drive letters to write files where they do not belong. Paths are cleaned before saving, so files always land inside the folder you chose. The archive is only read, nothing in it is executed.

Privacy

The archive never leaves your device, which matters for backups, contracts and photo collections.

Files inside documents

Word, Excel and PowerPoint files (.docx, .xlsx, .pptx) are ZIP archives too. Renaming a copy to .zip and opening it here reveals the images and media embedded in the document, which is a quick way to recover full-resolution pictures from a presentation.

Related tools

For .tar and .tar.gz archives, use the TAR Extractor. To shrink photos before zipping them, try the Image Compressor; for PDFs, Merge PDF combines documents into one file instead of an archive.