StudioZip:Supported Formats

Studio ZIP reads many archive formats. Only the ZIP family can also be written.

Overview

Group	Formats	Read	Write
ZIP family	.zip, .jar, .war, .apk, .vsix, .epub and more, see below	yes	yes
tar	.tar, .gem	yes	no
Compressed tar	.tar.gz, .tgz, .taz, .tar.bz2, .tbz, .tbz2, .tar.xz, .txz, .tar.zst, .tzst, .unitypackage, .crate	yes	no
Single compressed files	.gz, .bz2, .xz, .zst, .br	yes	no
Packages	.deb, .udeb, .a, .ar, .rpm, .cpio	yes	no
Other archives	.7z, .rar, .cab, .iso	yes	no
Electron bundles	.asar	yes	no

Not supported: .msi, .dmg, squashfs and .AppImage, .pkg (xar), lha, .lz4, .lz, .lzo and old Unix .Z files.

Opens on click

Studio ZIP is the default editor for these file name patterns. Clicking such a file in the Explorer opens the Studio ZIP tab.

Group	Extensions
ZIP	.zip, .zipx
Java and Android	.jar, .war, .ear, .aar, .jmod, .apk, .aab, .apks
Apps and plugins	.ipa, .vsix, .xpi, .crx, .oxt, .msix, .msixbundle, .appx, .appxbundle
Package managers	.nupkg, .snupkg, .whl, .egg, .pyz, .conda, .crate, .gem, .unitypackage
Documents	.epub, .docm, .xlsm, .pptm, .dotx, .xltx, .potx, .vsdx
Games	.love, .mcaddon, .mcworld, .mcpack
tar and compressed	.tar, .tgz, .taz, .gz, .bz2, .tbz, .tbz2, .xz, .txz, .zst, .tzst, .br
Packages	.deb, .udeb, .ar, .a, .rpm, .cpio
Other	.7z, .rar, .iso, .cab, .asar

A .tar.gz matches *.gz, a .tar.xz matches *.xz and so on.

Two exceptions:

• .asar is in the list, but VS Code itself treats an .asar file as a folder, so a click never reaches Studio ZIP. Use Studio ZIP: Mount Archive as Workspace Folder from the Command Palette instead. An .asar inside another archive opens normally.
• Office files .docx, .xlsx, .pptx, .odt, .ods and .odp are not in the list, so clicking them in the Explorer does not open Studio ZIP. Studio ZIP still recognizes them as ZIP archives when they are inside another archive. There they get the archive icon and open in their own Studio ZIP tab.

Format detection

File extensions are often wrong, for example a .zip that is really a 7z file. By default Studio ZIP reads the first bytes of the file and picks the format from its signature. Only if no signature matches does it use the file extension.

Format	Signature
ZIP	PK\x03\x04, also PK\x05\x06 (empty archive) and PK\x07\x08 (spanned)
tar	ustar at byte 257
gzip	1F 8B
bzip2	BZh
xz	FD 37 7A 58 5A
zstd	28 B5 2F FD
7z	37 7A BC AF 27 1C
RAR	Rar!
ar (.deb, .a)	!<arch>
RPM	ED AB EE DB
cpio	070701, 070702 or 070707
CAB	MSCF

Brotli (.br), ISO and asar files are always detected by their extension.

To trust only the file extension, set studioZip.detection.useMagicBytes to false. See Commands and Settings.

Notes per format

ZIP family

Read with random access, so opening a file does not unpack the rest. Archives larger than 2 GB work. Saving rewrites the archive, see Editing Archives.

Compressed files

A .gz, .bz2, .xz, .zst or .br file is unpacked once when it is opened.

• If the content is a tar archive, the tab shows the full tar listing.
• Otherwise the tab shows a single file named after the archive without the compression suffix. notes.txt.gz contains notes.txt. A .tgz or .txz that holds no tar contains <name>.tar.

zstd uses the decoder built into newer VS Code versions. Older versions fall back to a decoder bundled with the extension.

tar

GNU and PAX long file names are supported. A plain .tar on disk is not copied or unpacked, only its headers are read. Links and device files are listed as empty files.

Packages

• A .deb shows its three parts as they are: debian-binary, control.tar.* and data.tar.*. Open data.tar.zst or data.tar.xz like any nested archive to see the packaged files.
• An .rpm shows the files of its cpio payload. The payload may be compressed with gzip, xz, zstd or bzip2, or not at all.
• .cpio archives in the newc, crc and portable ASCII (odc) formats are supported.

7z, RAR, CAB and ISO

These are read with a WebAssembly build of libarchive that ships with the extension. It is loaded only when you open such a file. RAR and RAR5 are supported. Password protected 7z and RAR archives cannot be read.

asar

Read with random access. Files that the app keeps outside the bundle (.unpacked) and symbolic links are listed, but they have no content inside the archive and show as empty.

Memory use

Formats that must be unpacked as a whole (compressed tar, single compressed files, RPM, 7z, RAR, CAB, ISO) are unpacked once into memory when they are opened. Above 64 MB the unpacked data goes to a temporary file in the extension's storage folder instead. The file is deleted when the archive is closed.

Nested archives

A file inside an archive that has one of the archive extensions is treated as a nested archive. It gets an archive icon in the tree, and Open in editor opens it in its own Studio ZIP tab. Nesting has no depth limit, for example data.tar.zst inside a .deb, or a .jar inside a .war inside a .zip.

The bytes of a nested archive are taken from the outer archive and kept in memory while it is open. Writing works when every archive in the chain is a ZIP. See Which archives can be written.

Encrypted archives

Encrypted ZIP entries can be read. Both WinZip AES (128, 192 and 256 bit) and the older ZipCrypto method are supported.

• Encrypted files have a lock icon in the tree. The archive listing itself is never encrypted, so the tree always opens without a password.
• The preview does not show encrypted files. Use Open in editor or Extract….
• The first time an encrypted file is read, Studio ZIP asks for the password in an input box titled Password for <archive>.
• The password is kept in memory for this VS Code window only. It is not saved anywhere. After a reload you are asked again.
• A wrong password shows Wrong password. The next attempt asks again.
• An archive with encrypted entries cannot be written. See Editing Archives.

Encrypted entries in 7z and RAR archives are listed with a lock icon, but their content cannot be read.