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Working with archives

Peach Commander treats archives like folders. You can step inside a ZIP, TAR, or other supported archive, browse its contents, and copy files out — all without unpacking to disk first. When you want to create an archive, the Pack command bundles your selection into a ZIP, 7z, TAR, or other format, with optional encryption and split volumes. This is handy for bundling files to send, shrinking a folder for storage, or peeking inside a download before you commit to extracting it.

Browse an archive as a folder

  1. In a panel, move the cursor to an archive file (for example a .zip or .tar.gz).
  2. Press Enter or Ctrl+PageDown to step inside, just as you would open a folder.
  3. Navigate the contents normally. Press Backspace or Ctrl+PageUp to go back up and leave the archive.
  4. To pull files out, select them and copy (F5) to the other panel.

Browsing inside an archive as if it were a folder (Figure: An opened archive shown as an ordinary folder listing, with its files ready to copy out.)

ZIP, TAR, and gzip-compressed TAR are read directly. Other formats such as CPIO, ISO, CAB, LZH, XAR, and PAX are read through built-in system tools. Encrypted ZIP archives (both classic and AES) can be opened when you supply the password.

Pack files into a new archive

  1. Select the files and folders you want to include in the active panel.
  2. Choose File ▸ Pack… or press Alt+F5. (To pack and then delete the originals, use Alt+Shift+F5.)
  3. In the dialog, choose the archive format (ZIP, 7z, TAR, tar.gz, bzip2, xz, or RAR), the compression level, and where to save it.
  4. Optionally turn on AES-256 encryption and set a password, or split the archive into fixed-size volumes.
  5. Confirm to create the archive.

The Pack dialog showing format, compression, encryption, and split options (Figure: The Pack dialog, where you pick the format and set encryption and split-volume options.)

Unpack or test an archive

  1. Put the archive you want to extract into the active panel and the destination folder in the other panel.
  2. Choose File ▸ Unpack… or press Alt+F9, then confirm the destination.
  3. To check an archive for damage without extracting it, choose File ▸ Test Archive.

Edit a ZIP in place

You can add or remove files inside an existing ZIP without unpacking it. Open the ZIP as a folder, then copy files in or delete files as usual — the change is written straight back to the archive.

Shortcuts

Action Shortcut
Enter archive under cursor Enter or Ctrl+PageDown
Leave archive (go up) Backspace or Ctrl+PageUp
Pack Alt+F5
Pack and delete originals Alt+Shift+F5
Unpack Alt+F9

Notes

  • Packing to 7z, xz, bzip2, and RAR relies on external tools. RAR in particular requires the proprietary RAR program to be installed; without it, that format is unavailable.
  • Editing a ZIP in place rewrites the whole archive, so file modification timestamps inside it are not preserved.
  • Very large individual members are capped at 512 MiB when extracting. Extraction can be cancelled while it runs.
  • ZIP64 archives open like any other, so an archive with more than 65,535 items or larger than 4 GB browses normally; the per-member extraction limit above still applies.