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How to Extract Zip Files on a Chromebook

ChromeOS can now extract and create zip files natively. Here’s how to unzip and zip files right from the Files app on your Chromebook.

Dinsan Avatar
Dinsan

Unlike years ago, ChromeOS can now extract zip files without any extra app. The Files app handles it natively in just a couple of clicks.

How to Extract a Zip File

  1. Open the Files app and find the zip file.
  2. Right-click the file (or tap and hold on a touchscreen).
  3. Select Extract from the menu.
  4. A new folder with the same name appears, containing the extracted files.

How to Create a Zip File

  1. Select the files or folder you want to compress in the Files app.
  2. Right-click the selection.
  3. Choose Zip selection.

Quick Tips

  • ChromeOS also supports opening .rar, .tar, .tar.gz, and .tar.bz2 archives the same way.
  • If you need more advanced archive options, the ZIP Extractor extension still works for files stored in Google Drive.

Zipping and unzipping files on a Chromebook is now a built-in feature, no extensions needed for the basics.

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Dinsan Avatar
Dinsan
Dinsan Francis is the founder of Chrome Story, which he started in 2009 — the same year Google launched Chrome. He has covered the Chrome browser and Chromebook ecosystem for over 15 years and has used Chromebooks as his primary computing device since 2010. He’s always on the bleeding edge, running the Canary build of both Chrome and ChromeOS as daily drivers.

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8 responses to “How to Extract Zip Files on a Chromebook”

  1. robb Avatar
    robb

    it’s a great feature!

    just to correct you though, entering the terminal is ctrl + alt + t. ctrl + t only opens a new tab. i’m guessing it was just a typo though.

    also, when enabling this in the terminal, it also turns on ntfs support, so if you have a large external hard drive, it now loads in the file manager.

    lastly, before this update it was not intuitive to move files between folders on the file manager. now you can with cut, copy, and paste!

    Reply
  2. Cougar Abogado Avatar
    Cougar Abogado

    Thanks for the shout-out, Dinu.

    So far as I’m aware, this would also be available on the Series 5. Maybe a Series 5 owner will let us know. For some reason, I think the Acer is being held back on this dev build (it’s the only machine not up to 0.14.811.15) : http://cros-omahaproxy.appspot.com/

    +Robb. I like the NTFS observation. William mentioned that to me as well, and I failed to really take in what he meant.

    P.S., Dinu, I like the new (or at least recent, right?) Google+ follow widget.

    P.S.P.S. When do you guys think we’ll see Docs’ offline capability? (Google technically has until September 23 — end of summer.)

    Reply
  3. Albucian Avatar
    Albucian

    I also got excited when I saw the copy and paste buttons on the screen capture (and then I felt stupid about it…).

    So far the only thing that I really miss on my chromebook is a way to easily sort and resize my pictures locally before I upload them to picasa web. This could be part of the Picasa pluggin somehow.

    Reply
    1. Cougar Abogado Avatar
      Cougar Abogado

      I hear you on both accounts. As for the local picture editing capability, I just finished the annoyance of uploading/editing a photo in Picasa, myself, so I feel your pain. I also imagine the Picasa plugin could have the capability baked in.

      Reply
      1. robb Avatar
        robb

        if i remember correcetly, chrome os has a built in basic image editor on the way as mentioned in the chromium os bugs. it’s supposed to offer basic resize, rotate, crop features.

      2. Cougar Abogado Avatar
        Cougar Abogado

        Awesome. I sure hope so, as those basic features are usually all I want, anyway.

      3. Albucian Avatar
        Albucian

        Great!!!
        thx for the info.

  4. Justin Avatar
    Justin

    Does this work with the acer chrome book????

    Reply

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