ZIP Extractor - Free App for Opening and Creating ZIP Files (2024)

How to use ZIP Extractor

1. To begin, select a ZIP file to open from Gmail, Google Drive, or your computer. You can also use drag-and-drop.
2. Once displayed, click on any individual file inside the ZIP to view or download it.
3. Press the "Extract" button to extract the selected files to Google Drive.
4. A new folder will be created in Google Drive for the unzipped files ending with "(Unzipped Files)".
5. After extraction, click "View Files" to go to the unzipped files in Google Drive.

How ZIP Extractor Works

• ZIP Extractor is a pure JavaScript web app that runs entirely in your web browser. All extraction and decompression is done on your computer, and not on any server.
• ZIP Extractor can open password-protected files. The password is only used on your computer to open the file and is never sent over the network.
• ZIP Extractor supports ZIP, RAR, 7-Zip (*.7z), TAR, GZIP (*.gz), BZIP2 (*.bz2), LZIP (*.lz), and XZ (*.xz) file formats.

General Information About ZIP Files

ZIP files group together one or more files into a single file, called an archive, while at the same time compressing them and making them smaller. The ZIP file format is very popular for efficiently storing and transferring groups of files in a variety of business and personal applications.

The ZIP file format dates to the late 1980s when it received heavy use in pre-internet-era Bulletin Board Systems (BBSes). At that time, file transfer speeds were much slower than today. Using ZIP compression often saved minutes or even hours off of file transfers. It also allowed for multiple files and folders to be grouped together ("zipped") and transferred as a single ZIP file. The receiver of a a ZIP file would then use a decompression program to extract, or "unzip," the file contents onto a user's computer.

Today, the ZIP file format is widely supported, with billions of such files in circulation. ZIP files are commonly found as both Gmail attachments and Google Drive, as well as other cloud-based storage systems such as Dropbox and Microsoft OneDrive.

Examples of ZIP File Uses

ZIP files are common across a variety of business areas, including industries ranging from medical, insurance, legal, mortgage, banking and financial, scientific, equities and trading, SEO (Search Engine Optimization), and education industries.

Here are some specified real-world examples of actual usage of ZIP files:

• A car insurance agent ZIPs and emails information related to a person's health insurance, homeowner's insurance, auto insurance, or life insurance policy.
• A real estate agent scans and ZIPs a sales contract and sends it to a mortgage broker for a home loan when buying a home.
• An attorney or lawyer for a law firm creates a ZIP file containing a set of related legal documents such as a will, trust, claim, or other estate planning documents
• A university student ZIPs a homework assignment and related files and sends it to their instructor or professor in a classroom or online degree program.
• A tax accountant ZIPs and emails a copy of a person's federal and state tax returns for review before filing with the IRS.

ZIP files can contain multiple files of different types. Common files that can be included in a ZIP archive include PDFs, images, videos, and Microsoft Office documents including Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft PowerPoint (*.DOCX, *.XLSX, *.PPTX file formats).

Creating and Opening ZIP Files

ZIP Extractor and most modern operating systems have built-in functionality to create ZIP files.

• On Windows or PC, to create a ZIP file, right-click files in Windows Explorer and select “Send to -> Compressed (zipped) Folder.”
• On a Mac running Mac OS, create a ZIP file by right-clicking files in Finder and select "Compress [name_of_file].”
• On a Chromebook running Chrome OS, choose one more files in the Files app and then select “Zip selection.”
• In ZIP Extractor, click "Create New ZIP" and from there you can add files and folders to be compressed, including files from Google Drive. You can also drag-and-drop files and folders onto the main screen to ZIP them.
• In your web browser, you can also use the URL shortcut zip.new to go directly to the ZIP Extractor "Create New ZIP" screen.

On Windows, Mac, or Chrome OS, a ZIP file can be extracted (decompressed) by double-clicking it.

ZIP Extractor provides the same decompression functionality that standard operating systems provide, except that ZIP Extractor supports many more formats than the basic built-in functionality of most ZIP programs. ZIP Extractor is designed to work directly in the cloud (although it can also open ZIP files on your computer). There is no built-in ability to unzip ZIP files in Google Drive or Gmail, so ZIP Extractor is a third-party application that provides this functionality.

Encryption and Password Protection

The ZIP file format provides support for basic password-protected ZIP files. ZIP files can also use strong encryption based on AES (Advanced Encryption Standard). This "strong encryption" approach is much more secure than the original version. RAR and 7-Zip can also make password-protected file archives with strong encryption. ZIP Extractor has full support for opening ZIP, RAR, and 7-Zip files using all supported encryption formats. It can also create ZIP files using both standard and strong encryption.

Compressed Archive File Formats: ZIP, RAR, and 7-Zip

The three most common file compression formats in circulation today are ZIP, RAR, and 7-Zip, with ZIP files being the most common.

The ZIP File Format

The ZIP file format is is both an archive format (which contains multiple files and folders) and a compression format (where the file data itself is compressed).

The ZIP file format was first introduced in 1989, and the format and specification have been evolving ever since. The formal ZIP file specification is published as an Application Note.

The ZIP file format supports many different compression methods, although this is usually transparent to the user. The traditional compression method used by ZIP files, referred to as Deflate, is the most common. This is also the standard format that ZIP Extractor uses when creating ZIP files. ZIP Extractor can open files created with other compression methods like LZMA, BZIP2, PPMD, XZ, and ZSTD. This is all handled automatically.

RAR File Format

The RAR file format (from Roshal ARchive named after its author Eugene Roshal) is conceptually similar to ZIP files in that it supports archiving (grouping) files and folders together into a single file, while also compressing the file data. The RAR format dates back to the early 1980s, and can provide high compression ratios (producing smaller files). However, this comes at the expense of speed, with the PPMd and LZMA compression methods used by RAR having generally higher computational demands than the Deflate algorithm used by ZIP.

RAR is a highly proprietary format, and RAR files may only be created using the WinRar software program or companion command-line tool. Fortunately, the ability to open and decompress RAR files is "open source," and ZIP Extractor is able to open all types and versions of RAR files, including full support for encrypted and password-protected RAR files. More information can be found at the Library of Congress.

7-Zip (7z) File Format

The 7-Zip file format (also known as 7z) is a relatively new compressed archive format that, like ZIP and RAR, supports grouping and compressing multiple files and folders into a single file. This format uses the LZMA and LZMA2 compression method by default. Like ZIP, the architecture of the 7-Zip format allows for other compression methods to be used including BZIP2, PPMD, ZSTD, and even ZIP's own Deflate.

ZIP extractor supports opening all variants of 7-Zip files, including full support for encrypted and password-protected 7-Zip files.

The TAR File Format

The TAR file format (from Tape ARchive) is a older but well established format that groups together sets of files and folders in a reliable way. Originally, this was designed for archival storage on tape drives, but has been updated over the years and still is in active use, especially on UNIX/Linux systems. TAR files are much less common than ZIP files, however.

The TAR file format by itself doesn't include compression. For this reason TAR files are almost always combined with a separate file compressor. In this sense, the TAR file's job is to archive (group) files and folders, while the compressor's job is to compress the resulting TAR file into a smaller file.

ZIP Extractor supports opening and decompressing TAR files made with any of file compressors listed below:

GZIP, BZIP2, XZ, and LZIP File Compressors

After a TAR file is created, file compression is then performed using one of the methods described below. For example, with GZIP, the TAR file is compressed and then given the extension *.tar.gz. Although less common, the BZIP2, LZIP, and XZ compression methods can also be used

1. The GZIP file format (*.tar.gz or *.tgz). Applies Deflate compression to the file data, with some additional metadata. In common use but has some limitations in practice. More information available at gzip.org.
2. The BZIP2 file format (*.tar.bz2 or *.tbz). Applies BZIP2 compression to the file data, and includes metadata including built-in data integrity checks for each compressed block. More information available at sourceware.org/bzip2.
3. The LZIP file format (*.tar.lz or *.tlz). Applies LZMA compression to the file, with important features such as data integrity and indexing to allow for efficient multi-block processing and parallel decompression. More information available at nongnu.org/lzip.
4. The XZ file format (*.tar.xz or *.txz). Applies LZMA2 compression to the file data with special features to support parallel / multi-threaded decompression. More information available at tukaani.org/xz.

Further reading

Data compression has a long and interesting history. Over the years, this field has produced a wide variety of compressed file formats. These formats range from those commonly used today (as explored above) to more obscure ones that never gained traction.

For further reading, see the List of archive formats.