ByteScope

Archive Inspector

See exactly what's inside an archive — without extracting it or uploading it.

Your files never leave your browser — all processing is local.

Drop an archive here

ZIP · tar · tar.gz · gzip (incl. docx / apk / jar) — read locally, nothing uploaded, zip-bomb immune

About this tool

Drop a ZIP (including docx, apk, jar and other ZIP-based formats), tar, tar.gz or gzip file and browse its contents instantly. The inspector never decompresses the whole archive: for ZIPs it reads only the central directory — the archive's table of contents at the file's tail — which is why a multi-gigabyte archive opens in under a second and why zip bombs are harmless here. Only when you preview a single file does it inflate just that entry.

The tree view shows every entry with its original and compressed size, compression ratio, modification time, CRC and an encryption padlock where applicable, plus a stats panel: total files, total size, overall ratio, and the top-10 largest files. Click a text file to read it, an image to see it, or anything else to view its first bytes as hex; single entries can be downloaded individually, and nested archives (zip in zip) open in place.

It also gives a first read on "is this ZIP safe?": entries with path-traversal names (../) and executable files are flagged. Everything happens locally in your browser — the archive is never uploaded, which matters precisely for the archives you don't trust yet.

Frequently asked questions

How can it open huge archives so fast?
It doesn't extract anything. A ZIP file ends with a central directory listing every entry — the inspector reads just that (a few kilobytes even for giant archives) via random access. File data is only decompressed when you preview a specific entry, and only that entry.
Is it safe to open a suspicious ZIP here?
Safer than extracting it: nothing is written to disk, no code runs, and zip bombs don't detonate because the archive is never fully decompressed. The inspector also flags path-traversal entries (../ names that overwrite files outside the target folder when extracted) and executables so you know before extracting for real.
Can it open password-protected archives?
It shows the file listing of an encrypted ZIP (names and sizes are usually not encrypted) with a padlock on protected entries, but it cannot decrypt or preview their contents — password-based extraction isn't supported.
Why does it open my .docx / .apk / .jar?
Those formats are ZIP archives inside — inspecting them shows their real internal structure (word/ documents, AndroidManifest.xml, .class files), which is often exactly what you want when debugging one.
Which formats are supported?
ZIP (including ZIP64 and all ZIP-based formats like docx/xlsx/apk/jar/epub), tar, tar.gz/tgz and standalone gzip. RAR and 7z aren't supported yet — their decoders are large and are on the roadmap.