ZIP File List Exporter

This tool reads a ZIP archive and produces a flat inventory of everything inside it: full path, filename, extension, uncompressed size, folder depth, and a last-modified date where the archive records one. It exists for the moments when you need to describe a ZIP's contents to someone (or to yourself later) without unpacking it onto your disk.

The use cases that genuinely fit are documentary. Developers can attach a manifest to a release or hand-off ZIP so reviewers see the structure before extracting. Office and business users can produce a contents list for a client deliverable or a contract submission. Data and admin workers can turn an archive into a row-per-file table for a spreadsheet, and anyone keeping backups can confirm an archive still holds the files it should.

It is a reading tool, not an editing one. It will not extract, rename, recompress, or alter the archive in any way; the ZIP you drop in is the ZIP you keep. If you need the actual files, an extract tool is the right step instead.

The flow is short. Drop or select a single .zip file (up to roughly 300 MB), and the tool reads its central directory in your browser. A preview table appears showing path, extension, and size for the first 50 files, with a note when the archive holds more. Three buttons then export the complete list as CSV, TXT, or JSON.

Each format serves a different reader. The CSV carries eight columns (path, name, extension, size in bytes, human-readable size, folder depth, an is-directory flag, and last-modified) and opens cleanly in Excel, Google Sheets, or Numbers. The TXT is a plain padded listing with a small header summarizing total entries, file count, and folder count. The JSON lists files only, with metadata, for scripts and tooling.

Two honest scope notes: only the ZIP format is supported here, not RAR, 7z, or TAR, and nothing is decompressed or uploaded. Sizes reported are uncompressed (the file's real size), not the smaller compressed size stored in the archive.

The most common surprise is missing dates. ZIP archives do not always store modification timestamps, and when a timestamp is absent the date field is simply blank rather than estimated. Treat an empty date as unknown, not as a sign of an empty or recent file.

The CSV and JSON exports cover every entry, but the on-screen preview stops at 50 files. If you eyeball the table and assume that is the whole archive, you will undercount large ZIPs; always export to see the full set. Note too that CSV and TXT list files only, while folders are reflected in counts and in the CSV's is-directory flag rather than as their own rows in the readable listing.

Other pitfalls are practical. A corrupt or non-ZIP file will fail to read with an error rather than a partial list. Encrypted ZIPs may expose names but not always reliable sizes. And because sizes are uncompressed, the totals will not match the archive's compressed footprint on disk.

Start with the counts. Confirm the file and folder totals in the TXT header or the exported rows match what you expect from the archive, and spot-check a few known paths to be sure nesting and filenames came through intact, including any non-English characters. If you opened the CSV in a spreadsheet, verify the columns aligned and that paths containing commas stayed in a single cell.

Then sanity-check the metadata you actually care about. Sizes are uncompressed, so compare against the original files rather than the ZIP's compressed size; scan the date column for blanks and remember those mean unrecorded, not zero. If anything in the preview looked truncated, re-open the full export rather than trusting the 50-row view.

For official, financial, or legal submissions, treat this inventory as a convenience listing and verify it manually: open the archive in a trusted tool and confirm the critical files, paths, and sizes independently before the manifest is signed off or relied upon as a record.