ZIP Inspector
See what is inside a ZIP without extracting it, and what it would do if you did.
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About the ZIP Inspector converter
A ZIP keeps an index of its contents at the end of the file, which means the whole listing can be read without decompressing anything. That is worth knowing when you have downloaded something you are not sure about.
Nothing here is extracted and nothing is uploaded. You get the contents, the sizes, and a warning about the things an archive can do to you when you unpack it carelessly.
Paths that escape the folder
An entry inside a ZIP carries its own path, and nothing forces that path to stay inside the folder you extract to. A name like ../../something writes outside it, and an extractor that trusts the archive will happily do so — the trick is old enough to have a name, zip slip, and new enough that tools still get caught by it.
Any entry that climbs out, or that carries an absolute path deciding for itself where it lands, is flagged before you unpack anything.
Things that get much bigger
Compression ratios are listed per entry, because a small file that unpacks to something enormous is worth knowing about in advance. A few kilobytes expanding to gigabytes is a deliberate trick, and the listing shows it without triggering it.
Encrypted entries are called out too. Not because encryption is suspicious, but because nothing inside them can be listed or checked without the password — including by whatever scanned the file before it reached you.
More things are ZIPs than you would think
Office documents, EPUB books, Android packages and Java archives are all ZIP files with a different extension, so all of them can be opened here. That is often the quickest way to see what a .docx actually contains, or to check what an .epub has bundled.
It is also how you find the metadata people forget about: an Office document keeps author names and revision history in files inside the archive, visible in this listing.
Frequently asked questions
Does it extract the files?
No, and that is the point. Only the index is read, so nothing is decompressed and nothing is written anywhere. You can look inside something you do not trust without giving it the chance to do anything.
Is the archive uploaded?
No. It is read in your browser, which is also why a very large archive is fine — only the last part of the file is needed to list the contents.
What is zip slip?
A ZIP entry whose stored path points outside the folder being extracted to, using .. to climb up. An extractor that does not check can be made to overwrite files elsewhere on the system. Any entry doing this is flagged here.
Can it open RAR or 7z files?
No. Those are different formats with different structures. It does open anything built on ZIP, which includes .docx, .xlsx, .pptx, .epub, .jar and .apk.
Why does it say an entry is encrypted?
Because that entry's contents are password-protected. The name and size are still listed, but nothing inside can be examined — by this tool or by any scanner — without the password.