Compress Preview
Preview the contents of ZIP-, TAR-, and GZIP-based archive files directly inside VS Code.
Compress Preview replaces the usual binary file experience with a focused archive view so you can inspect entries, open text files, and extract files without leaving the editor.
What It Does
- Opens supported archives in a custom preview view.
- Lists files and folders inside the archive.
- Lets you open text-based files directly in VS Code.
- Opens common binary entries through temporary extracted preview files.
- Lets you extract one file or the full archive.
- Handles large archives with loading and partial-result states instead of hanging forever.
Screenshots
How To Use
- Open a supported archive file in VS Code.
- Browse the archive contents in the preview.
- Open a file from the tree to preview it in VS Code.
- Use Extract or Extract all when you want files written to disk.
.zip, .jar, .apk, .vsix, .xpi, .whl, .war, .ear, .tar, .tgz, .tar.gz, .gz, .epub,
.docx, .pptx, .xlsx, .odt, .ods, .odp, .aar, .crx, .nupkg, .cbz, .kmz, .ipa, .appx, .msix
What Opens In The Editor
Text-like files open directly in VS Code as read-only virtual documents, including common formats such as:
.txt, .json, .md, .xml, .html, .css, .js, .ts, .yml, .yaml, .csv, .log
Common binary files open through a temporary extracted preview file so they can use VS Code's normal file handling. GZIP archives expose a single decompressed file entry in the preview.
Settings
Open Settings and search for Compress Preview, or edit settings.json:
| Setting |
Default |
Description |
compress-preview.listTimeoutMs |
10000 |
Max time (ms) to spend listing entries before showing partial results. |
compress-preview.watchArchiveFile |
true |
Reload the preview when the archive file changes on disk. |
compress-preview.tempPreviewMaxAgeDays |
7 |
Days to keep cached binary previews under the OS temp folder before pruning. |
compress-preview.textExtensions |
[] |
Additional extensions to treat as text (for example toml, lock) so entries open in the text preview provider. |
Notes
- The preview is read-only.
- Binary previews are extracted to a temporary OS-specific cache path under
compress-preview/ before opening.
- Cached binary previews reuse the same archive-entry path and are pruned after the configured number of days without use.
- Very large archives may show a partial list first, with a retry option.
- Folder entries are shown in the archive view but cannot be opened as files.
Testing
npm test runs unit and fixture-backed integration tests.npm run test:e2e bundles the extension and runs all end-to-end tests via Vitest: Playwright webview layout checks (e2e-browser) and VS Code extension-host smoke tests (e2e-extension-host). Webview JSDOM integration tests run with the unit project (src/tests/webview.harness.test.ts).npm run test:webview:browser runs only the Playwright webview suite (alias for vitest run --project e2e-browser).
Install
Install from the VS Code Marketplace, or install a generated .vsix package manually.
Feedback
Issues and feature requests: https://github.com/bircni/compress-preview/issues
License
MIT
