Browsing archives

Archive browsing displays folders and files inside an archive without extracting it first. Archive contents are read-only.

Stepping into an archive

Double-click an archive, or select it and press Enter, and tessoa steps into it the way it steps into a folder, listing what is inside. A ▸ after the name marks the ones you can enter, and clicking that ▸ enters it too.

Press Alt+↑ to go back out to the folder holding the archive.

Once inside, both the last breadcrumb segment and the tab title become the archive name; subfolders in the archive can be entered too, to any depth.

Supported formats

Category	Extensions
zip	.zip, including .jar and .apk
7z	.7z
RAR	.rar, requires an external tool
tar	.tar
Compressed tars	.tar.gz / .tgz, .tar.xz / .txz, .tar.zst / .tzst, .tar.bz2 / .tbz / .tbz2
Single-file compression	.gz, .xz, .zst, .bz2 (one file inside)

Browsing RAR requires an external tool: an installed copy of 7-Zip or WinRAR on Windows, or 7zz, 7z or unrar on the PATH on macOS and Linux. With a tool available, you can enter a RAR and preview supported files inside it. RAR files nested inside another archive cannot be entered.

What you can do inside

• Navigate, sort, and switch views exactly as in an ordinary folder.
• Select images, text, spreadsheets, and PDFs in there and preview them.
• Encrypted archives ask for a password before you can browse.

Note

Images inside an archive do not get thumbnails; the list shows generic file icons. Click one and you still see it in the preview area.

The contents are read-only

Note

Nothing inside an archive can be changed. You cannot rename, delete, create, or paste inside one, and you cannot drag files out of it. To get the contents out, go back to the folder holding the archive and extract it, see Extracting archives.

Extracting to disk

When you need files you can edit, there is no need to step inside: go back to the folder holding the archive, right-click it, and the menu offers Extract Here, Extract to Subfolder and Extract to…, see Extracting archives.

Create an archive

Select local files or folders to access these operations from the right-click menu. Multiple selections are supported. These operations are unavailable inside archives, in the Recycle Bin or for disk roots.

Menu entry	Action
Compress to ZIP	Creates a ZIP in the folder containing the selection
Compress to 7z	Creates a 7z in the folder containing the selection
Compress to…	Sets the format, file name, destination and optional password

To choose compression options:

1. Select the files or folders to compress.
2. Right-click a selected item.
3. Open the Compress submenu and click Compress to….
4. Choose ZIP, 7z or tar.gz under Format.
5. Enter the File name.
6. Enter Password (optional) if needed.
7. Choose the destination under Save to.
8. Click Compress.

Select three files, open Compress → Compress to…, choose 7z and enter a file name. The completed archive appears in the current folder.

tessoa creates all three formats directly, without external tools. ZIP and 7z support AES-256 password encryption; 7z also encrypts file names. tar.gz does not support passwords. Switching formats updates the extension automatically, and the next dialog remembers the last format used.

Compressing a folder preserves its top-level folder name. Symbolic links and directory junctions are skipped, so their targets are not included through the links. The transfer panel shows progress and allows cancellation. On completion, the new archive is selected and an Activity entry is added.

Note

Undoing compression moves the generated archive to the Recycle Bin. It cannot restore an older archive overwritten during compression. Use a different file name if you need to keep the old archive.

See also

Extracting archives · Preview · Image preview · File operations