Zip and Unzip Files

What is a ZIP file?

A ZIP file bundles many files and folders into one, usually compressing each of them. Besides .zip files, the same format sits inside .jar, .apk, .epub, .docx and .xlsx files.

This tool works both ways. Drop files or a folder to get one .zip, or drop a .zip to browse its folders, preview a file and save what you need.

Zip and unzip options

Files, folder or ZIP

Files or a whole folder to zip, up to 2 GiB and 10,000 files, or one .zip to open, up to 1 GiB. A ZIP is read whole because it keeps its index at the end.

What to do

Auto opens a .zip, .jar, .apk or .epub and zips anything else. Make a ZIP and Open a ZIP force one direction, for example to open a .docx.

Compression level

From 0, which stores files as they are, to 9, the smallest archive. The default is 6. Only used when making a ZIP.

Archive name

Optional. Without it the ZIP is named after your folder, or after your file without its extension, so report.pdf gives report.zip.

Only these paths

Glob patterns for opening part of a ZIP, one per line or separated by commas, ignoring case. *.csv picks every CSV file in any folder, and docs/ picks everything under docs.

Password

For opening a protected ZIP, both the older ZipCrypto scheme and WinZip AES.

• An opened ZIP shows as a folder. Browse it, preview a file, save one file, download it all again as one .zip, or in Chrome and Edge save the whole folder to disk.
• A zipped folder keeps its structure, empty folders included, and its files keep their dates.
• Making a password-protected ZIP is not offered here.

Opening reads stored, Deflate, Deflate64, bzip2, LZMA, XZ, Zstandard and PPMd entries, plus Shrink, Reduce and Implode from early PKZIP versions. New archives use Deflate, or no compression at level 0.

Why zip and unzip here instead of an app

It helps on a borrowed or locked-down computer with no archive program, and when you only want one file out of a large archive: open it, find the file in the folder view and save just that.

Opening is careful about what it writes out. Entries with absolute paths, drive letters or .. in their names are skipped, and so are symlinks, the __MACOSX resource forks that macOS adds, and a path that appears twice. A ZIP inside the ZIP comes out as a file and is not opened. Sizes count as bytes are written, so a header that understates a file's size cannot get past the limit.

Zip alternatives

Windows, macOS and most Linux desktops make and open ZIP files from the file manager. 7-Zip and The Unarchiver handle larger archives and also open 7z and RAR, which this page does not.

For a .tar, .tar.gz or .tar.xz archive, use Open TAR and TAR.GZ Files. To shrink one file without an archive around it, Gzip or Zstandard is simpler.

Things to know about ZIP files

Phil Katz's PKZIP introduced the format in 1989, and PKWARE still publishes its specification as APPNOTE.TXT.

New archives are written in one pass, with each file's size and checksum stored after its data. unzip, 7-Zip, Windows, macOS and Python read them, but Java's ZipInputStream refuses entries stored this way at level 0, so pick a level from 1 to 9 for Java programs.

Because the index sits at the end, a ZIP can carry other data in front of it. That is how self-extracting .exe archives work, and why opening needs the whole file.