Archive Tools

Compress and extract archives straight from the VS Code Explorer — zip, 7z, RAR, tar, gzip and 40+ other formats — with no external tools to install.

The extension bundles a full build of 7-Zip 24.09 compiled to WebAssembly, so it behaves identically on Windows, macOS and Linux from a single install.

Features

Preview contents

Click any archive and it opens in a preview showing what is inside — instead of the usual "binary file not displayed". Nothing is extracted; the listing is read straight from the archive.

The preview shows each file with its size, packed size, how much it saved, and when it was modified, plus a header summarising the format, file count and overall compression. You can filter by name, sort by any column, and act on the archive from the toolbar — Extract Selected, Extract Here, Extract to…, or Open as Folder. Encrypted entries are marked with a lock, and encrypted archives prompt for a password before the listing is shown.

To go back to the raw file, use Reopen Editor With… from the editor title menu.

Extract single files

Tick the files you want in the preview and choose Extract Selected — only those files are unpacked, and the rest of the archive is never touched. Click a row to tick it, shift-click to take a run of files, or use the header checkbox to take everything the filter is showing. Ticking a file and filtering for the next one is fine: the selection is remembered as you filter and sort.

The files land in the folder you pick, with the directory they all share removed — pulling one file out of docs/manual/ gives you the file, not the folders around it. A selection that spans several folders keeps its structure, so same-named files cannot collide.

Drag files out of an archive

You can also drag a row straight from the preview into the Explorer — or onto the editor area to open it — and only that file is unpacked. Dragging a ticked row takes the whole ticked set; dragging an unticked one takes just that row.

The file has to exist on disk before a drag can carry it, so the preview starts unpacking the moment you hover or press a row, into a scratch folder that is deleted when the editor closes. Entries above 64 MB are left alone until you actually drag them: the first drag is refused with "Preparing …" and works as soon as the line says it is ready.

Extract

Right-click any archive in the Explorer:

• Extract Here — unpacks next to the archive.
• Extract to Folder… — pick a destination.

Extraction is smart about layout. An archive with one top-level folder is unpacked in place; one that would scatter loose files across your directory gets its own folder instead, so you never have to clean up a "tarbomb". Compound formats like .tar.gz are fully unwrapped in one step — you get your files, not an intermediate .tar.

Compress

Select one or more files or folders, then Add to Archive…. Choose the format, a compression level from Store to Ultra, and optionally a password.

Browse without extracting

Open Archive (Browse) mounts an archive as a read-only folder in the Explorer. Expand it, open files inside it, and read them in the editor — nothing is written to disk except the individual files you actually open.

Passwords

Encrypted archives prompt for a password when one is needed, and re-prompt if it is wrong. New .zip and .7z archives can be encrypted with AES-256; for .7z the file names are encrypted too.

Passwords are held in memory for the session. Enable archiveTools.password.remember to persist them in the OS credential store instead.

Supported formats

Multi-volume archives (.7z.001, .part1.rar, .z01) are detected automatically as long as the other volumes sit alongside the one you open.

RAR is extract-only. Creating RAR archives is prohibited by the unRAR licence, which forbids using its source to re-create the RAR compression algorithm. Every tool built on 7-Zip has this same restriction.

Settings

Notes and limitations

• Desktop only. The engine reads and writes real files through Node, so the extension does not run in VS Code for the Web.
• Single-threaded. The WebAssembly build of 7-Zip runs on one thread, so very large archives compress more slowly than a native 7-Zip would. Extraction and listing are fast in practice.
• Archive work runs on a background worker thread, so the editor stays responsive and every operation can be cancelled from its progress notification.
• An archive's listing is reused across operations while the file is unchanged, so previewing and then extracting does not read it twice. Refresh in the preview always re-reads the archive.

Development

npm install
npm run compile        # bundle to dist/ and copy 7zz.wasm
npm run test:unit      # pure logic (parser, format tables, path handling)
npm run test:engine    # real archives through the shipped WASM bundle
npm test               # runs the suite inside a real VS Code instance
npm run package        # produce a .vsix

To cut a release, run ./publish.ps1. It type checks, runs all three test suites, bumps the version, packages into release/, verifies the bundled 7-Zip engine actually made it into the VSIX, then offers to install locally and publish to the Marketplace.

Press F5 to launch an Extension Development Host.

Licence

The extension is MIT licensed. It redistributes 7-Zip, which is LGPL with the additional unRAR restriction — see NOTICE for the full terms.