What the ZIP extractor does
Open a .zip file and the tool lists everything inside with names and sizes, lets you download any single file, or download all of them. It is for the moments when you cannot or would rather not unzip normally: a phone or tablet without a file manager, a locked-down work machine, a Chromebook, a browser on someone else's computer, or simply wanting one file out of a large archive without extracting the lot. Decompression runs with JSZip in your browser; the archive is never uploaded.
How it works
A ZIP archive ends with a central directory listing every entry and where it sits in the file. The extractor reads that directory to show the list instantly, then decompresses individual entries on demand — so listing a 500 MB archive is fast, and pulling one 2 MB file out of it takes a moment, not the time to unpack everything. Each entry's CRC-32 checksum is verified after decompression, which catches corrupted downloads.
What is supported
| Feature | Supported? |
|---|---|
| Standard ZIP with DEFLATE or stored entries | Yes |
| Nested folders | Yes — shown with their paths; downloaded files use the base name |
| Large archives (hundreds of MB) | Yes on desktop; depends on memory on phones |
| ZIP64 (over 4 GB or 65,535 entries) | Partially — depends on browser memory |
| Password-protected / encrypted ZIP | No |
| Other formats: RAR, 7z, tar.gz | No — ZIP only |
| Self-extracting .exe archives | No |
Common uses
- Opening a zipped attachment on a phone that has no archive app.
- Grabbing one document or image from a large download without unpacking everything.
- Checking what an archive contains before extracting it to your computer.
- Extracting on a kiosk, library or work computer where installing software is not allowed.
- Recovering files from an archive that a desktop tool refuses — JSZip is tolerant of some minor format quirks.
Safety
- Files are only downloaded when you click; nothing is executed. Treat extracted executables, scripts and macro-enabled documents with the same caution as any download.
- Because the archive stays on your device, extracting a confidential ZIP here is safer than using an upload-based online extractor.
- “Zip bombs” — tiny archives that expand to enormous sizes — will simply exhaust browser memory and fail; they cannot harm your system from within a browser tab.
Tips
- “Download all” triggers one download per file; allow multiple downloads when the browser asks.
- Files in subfolders are saved by their base name, so two files with the same name in different folders will produce duplicate downloads — download them one at a time and rename.
- If an archive shows garbled filenames, it was created on a system using a non-UTF-8 encoding (common with older Windows tools in some regions); the file contents are still fine.