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.
Supported Archive Formats
.zip
.jar
.apk
.vsix
.xpi
.whl
.war
.ear
.tar
.tgz
.tar.gz
.gz
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.
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 7 days of inactivity.
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 runs VS Code extension-host smoke tests against the packaged extension bundle.
Install
Install from the VS Code Marketplace, or install a generated .vsix package manually.
