How to Unzip a File in PowerShell

PowerShell provides built-in cmdlets for managing compressed files. Here’s how you can unzip a file using PowerShell:

Method 1: Using the Expand-Archive Cmdlet

The Expand-Archive cmdlet is the easiest way to unzip a .zip file in PowerShell.

Steps:

1. Open PowerShell:
   • Press Windows + X and select PowerShell or Windows Terminal.
2. Run the Command:

   Expand-Archive -Path "C:\Path\To\File.zip" -DestinationPath "C:\Path\To\Extract"
   

   • -Path: Specifies the location of the .zip file.
   • -DestinationPath: Specifies where the extracted files will be stored.

Example:

To extract example.zip to C:\ExtractedFiles:

Expand-Archive -Path "C:\example.zip" -DestinationPath "C:\ExtractedFiles"

Method 2: Using .NET System.IO.Compression Class

If you are using an older version of PowerShell (before version 5.0), you can use .NET libraries.

Steps:

1. Run the Script:

   Add-Type -AssemblyName System.IO.Compression.FileSystem
   [System.IO.Compression.ZipFile]::ExtractToDirectory("C:\Path\To\File.zip", "C:\Path\To\Extract")
   

   • Replace "C:\Path\To\File.zip" with the path to your .zip file.
   • Replace "C:\Path\To\Extract" with the destination folder.

Example:

To extract backup.zip to D:\Data:

Add-Type -AssemblyName System.IO.Compression.FileSystem
[System.IO.Compression.ZipFile]::ExtractToDirectory("C:\backup.zip", "D:\Data")

Method 3: Using Compress-Archive to Verify Compression

To verify that you can both compress and decompress in PowerShell, you can create a zip file and extract it:

• Compress:

  Compress-Archive -Path "C:\MyFolder" -DestinationPath "C:\MyFolder.zip"
  

• Decompress:

  Expand-Archive -Path "C:\MyFolder.zip" -DestinationPath "C:\MyFolderUnzipped"
  

Tips:

• Ensure the Destination Path exists before running the command. If it doesn’t, PowerShell will create the folder.
• Use the -Force parameter with Expand-Archive to overwrite files in the destination folder:

  Expand-Archive -Path "C:\file.zip" -DestinationPath "C:\folder" -Force
  

These methods are simple and work across most PowerShell environments.