How to extract Zip files on your computer

Compressed files are often unusable until you unzip them from the ZIP folder. Remember that ZIP folders are different from other compressed file types (for example, RAR files) in that they do not require special software to open on the computer.

Today's article will show you how to extract Zip files on Windows, Mac and Linux computers.

Unzip the .zip file in Windows

Windows supports decompressing .zip files without installing any other tools. To extract the .zip file in Windows, do the following:

1. Save the downloaded .zip file to your hard drive.
2. Right click on the file and select " Extract all ". This will open the extract wizard.
3. Click "Browse" and choose the location to extract the files if you don't want to save the file in the default location that Windows chooses. (Usually the directory containing the original compressed file)
4. Select the " Make a new folder " option to create a new folder if needed.
5. Select Show extracted files when complete to display the file after extracting or removing if you want.
6. Click "Extract" to start the extraction process.

When the file decompression finishes, if you have selected Show extracted . then the folder containing the extracted file will be displayed for you to start working with the files.

Unzip the .zip file in Linux

Zip files were very popular before, when the download speed was slow and every byte saved was important. However, Zip is a popular file type. Sooner or later you will have to open a .zip file.

Depending on the distribution you are using, extracting a Zip archive can be very easy. However, it is also helpful to know some more advanced ways to open and process .zip files.

Unzip by GUI

On most Linux desktop environments, extracting a file is easy. Just right-click on the file and you'll see a few options. You can choose 'Extract Here' or 'Unzip Here' here.

You will also see the 'Extract To' option to extract to a specific location. This option is useful if you are trying to extract a file from the Downloads folder to another location. Not all desktop environments have these tools installed, but if they are, this is the simplest method.

If your desktop does not include these handy shortcuts, you can only open the .zip file in the GUI archive program. This program includes Gnome Archive Manager on the Gnome, Ark desktop on KDE desktop, etc.

If there is no GUI storage utility available or looking for more powerful features, select the command line.

Unzip the file with the command line

Some Linux command line utilities have complicated names, but that is not the case. The command to extract a file on Linux is simply called unzip.

The easiest way to extract a file on the Linux command line is to run the following command:

 unzip filename.zip 

This command will extract the file directly in the directory in which it is located. If you want to extract in another folder, you can also do that. Imagine that you have a file in the download folder, want to extract in the home directory. To do this, run the following command.

 unzip filename.zip -d ~/ 

Preview the contents of the Zip file on the command line

On the desktop, you can often double-click the Zip file to view its contents before extracting. However, it is not possible to do so on the command line.

That doesn't mean you can't preview the contents of the Zip file. To do this, run the following command:

 unzip -l filename.zip 

The content of the file will display in one line at a time.

Selectively extract parts of Zip files

Now you know how to preview the contents of the Zip file. You may realize that you don't need everything in that file. In this situation, you can handle two different ways: Extract one or two files from the Zip archive or select an unnecessary file to exclude from the extraction process.

To extract a single file from the Zip archive, you will need to provide the full path. This means that if there is a folder named Folder that contains everything, you will need to specify the full path to that directory.

 unzip filename.zip "Folder/file1.txt" 

If you want to extract the file without creating a new directory, use the -j parameter :

 unzip -j filename.zip "Folder/file1.txt" 

The way to exclude a file from the build process is similar, but use the -x parameter . If you want to exclude the file 'file.txt', run the following command:

 unzip filename.zip -x "Folder/file1.txt" 

Unzip the .zip file in UNIX

There are several Zip file compression and decompression methods in UNIX. You should use the "zip" function to compress your files so that it is easy to use and portable. (Compressed files in Unix can be extracted with different tools on different platforms including Windows).

Here are the various "decompression" methods. The 'correct' decompression method depends on the method used to compress the file. You can tell how to compress the file through the file extension (eg .zip, .tar, .gz, etc.)

Please note that the decompression method you use is determined by the file name you are trying to extract. For example, if you are trying to extract a file called file.tar - you will use the method described in 'tar'. Files ending in .gzip or .gz should be extracted using the method described in 'gunzip'.

Zip

If you have a zip file called myzip.zip and want to extract the files, you will enter:

 unzip myzip.zip 

Entering zip or unzip will give you a summary of the usage, displaying almost all available options.

Tar

To extract a file that is compressed with tar (for example, filename.tar), type the following command from your SSH prompt:

 tar xvf filename.tar 

Basically, this command means you will see the file 'boom', so don't worry when you see your screen scrolling violently. It also means that you will see any errors in the compressed file.

Gunzip

To extract a file compressed with gunzip, enter the following:

 gunzip filename_tar.gz 

Then if you don't notice any errors, enter:

 tar xvf filename_tar 

Unzip the .zip file on a Mac

If you have purchased digital media that contains many files, you will download a .zip file containing the entire package. After the download is complete, you will find it in your default download location. If you are not sure where your default download directory is, proceed with the test.

Before you add files to the media player library, you must first "extract" the files. If you double-click the .zip package that you downloaded, Archive Utility will appear and automatically extract your files. If double clicking doesn't work, please try the following:

1. Right-click the .zip package, and select Open With> Archive Utility (default).

2. Archive Utility will appear on your screen and will display the extraction process.

3. When the files are extracted, they will appear in a folder located in the same location as the original .zip file.

Now you can open your media file by adding the extracted files to the media player you choose.

See more:

1. Unzip Zip, RAR, . files online without software
2. How to extract Zip files on your computer
3. The best RAR file extraction application on Android