Zip archives are widely used on today’s Internet and on desktop computer systems. The Zip archive format is popular and used for distributing files, programs or saving space.
Archives contain one or more files. A Zip archive needs to be extracted, which is called unzipping.
Windows 11 supports the Zip archive format by default. It can extract contents of archives on the system. A third-party tool, like WinZip, WinRar or 7-Zip, is not required anymore for that purpose.
While it is a useful feature, it is far from perfect. Current versions of Windows 11 may be used to create and extract Zip archives. Windows 11 supports extracting other archive types, including Rar.
Last year, I ran benchmarks to find out how well the native functionality compared to that of popular archive apps. While it works, its performance is much slower than that of the tested third-party tools.
How to unzip files in Windows 11?
You may use the File Explorer context menu to extract archives. The option is available for all supported archive formats, including zip and rar.
Step 1: Open File Explorer on the system and navigate to the folder that contains the Zip archive. It may be in the Downloads folder if you have downloaded it from the Internet.
Step 2: Right-click on the Zip file and select the Extract all option from the menu that opens.
Step 3: A window opens. You may change the location the files will be extracted to. The default is a folder that matches the archive file’s name in the same location as the archive.
The option “show extracted files when complete” opens that folder. It is enabled by default, but can be unchecked.
Select Extract to unzip the archive to the selected folder. The process may take a while to complete.
How to view the contents of Zip archives
You may also open archives on Windows 11 before you extract them. This is useful if you want to see the files of the archive or access some of the files.
Double-click on the Zip archive in File Explorer to display its contents. File Explorer lists all folders and files that it contains.
You may browse them or use the built-in search feature to find specific files.
Your Options:
- Double-click on any file to open it. This works only for files like .txt or .png that have a viewer on the system.
- Right-click on a file or a selection to get options to copy, cut or delete it. Copy may be used to extract only the selected files. Cut is like copy, but it removes the file from the archive. Delete removes the file from the archive.
- Select the “extract all” button in the toolbar to extract all files. This works similarly to extracting archives using the context menu.
Tip: You may edit the path in File Explorer to view any archive directly. Just add the archive’s name and file extension to it, e.g. C:\Users\Martin\Downloads\Test\iview466_plugins_x64.zip
Use of third-party tools to unzip files
Third-party archive apps offer several advantages over the native functionality of Windows 11. Apart from the already mentioned speed, which translates to minutes or hours saved when extracting and creating archives, third-party apps support advanced features.
Advantages include support for additional archive formats, better archive creation support and more.
Extracting archives works identical once the third-party app is installed on a Windows 11 device.
Right-click on the archive and select the extract option. If you have installed WinRAR, you select WinRAR > Extract Files.
Command line and PowerShell options
Most Windows users do not need to extract Zip archives from the command line or PowerShell. The process is not faster. In fact, most users may find it complicated, as it requires parameters.
Still, some may find the information useful.
Command Prompt
Open a Command Prompt window in the location of the archive file. If you are in File Explorer, replace the location path with CMD and press the Enter-key. This launches a Command Prompt window in the location.
Now run the command tar -xf ARCHIVENAME, e.g. tar -xf iview466_plugins_x64.zip.
This extracts the archive to the current directory.
PowerShell
You may open a PowerShell prompt from Start. Just open Start, type PowerShell and select the result.
Navigate to the folder of the Zip archive using the CD command.
Once there run the command Expand-Archive ARCHIVENAME to extract it, e.g. Expand-Archive iview466_plugins_x64.zip.
Closing Words
Third-party software offers several advantages over the built-in Zip extraction capabilities of Windows 11. In fact, the only advantage Windows 11’s native functionality has is that it is available immediately.
If you extract archives regularly or need advanced options, then you may want to use third-party tools for that.
Now You: do you use archive apps?