Unzip

Zip & Unzip

Prior to Windows PowerShell 5.0, if you want to zip or unzip the files you have to depend on COM objects, but from version 5.0 onwards (it is even available in PowerShell Core as well) there are two new cmdlets Compress-Archive and Expand-Archive are introduced to zip & unzip the files respectively. Examples: ### Examples are from Microsoft Docs ## Zip the files # Example 1: Create an archive file Compress-Archive -LiteralPath C:\Reference\Draftdoc.docx, C:\Reference\Images\diagram2.vsd -CompressionLevel Optimal -DestinationPath C:\Archives\Draft.Zip # Example 2: Create an archive with wildcard characters Compress-Archive -Path C:\Reference\* -CompressionLevel Fastest -DestinationPath C:\Archives\Draft # Example 3: Update an existing archive file Compress-Archive -Path C:\Reference\* -Update -DestinationPath C:\Archives\Draft.Zip # Example 4: Create an archive from an entire folder Compress-Archive -Path C:\Reference -DestinationPath C:\Archives\Draft ## Unzip the file # Example 1: Extract the contents of an archive Expand-Archive -LiteralPath C:\Archives\Draft.Zip -DestinationPath C:\Reference # Example 2: Extract the contents of an archive in the current folder Expand-Archive -Path Draft.Zip -DestinationPath C:\Reference


Download a zip file from the internet and extract using PowerShell.

The code below will download the .zip file from the internet, then extracts the files from the zip and opens the extracted folder… $Url = 'https://download.sysinternals.com/files/BGInfo.zip' $ZipFile = 'C:\ZipFolder\' + $(Split-Path -Path $Url -Leaf) $Destination= 'C:\Extracted\' Invoke-WebRequest -Uri $Url -OutFile $ZipFile $ExtractShell = New-Object -ComObject Shell.Application $Files = $ExtractShell.Namespace($ZipFile).Items() $ExtractShell.NameSpace($Destination).CopyHere($Files) Start-Process $Destination