Command line utility for selective unpacking of archived files.

The tool uses a CSV configuration file that provides file names and relative locations of the entries to extract. It checks all the supported archives in the given source path and tries to extract specific archived entries as defined in the configuration.

Supported archive types: Zip, Rar, 7z, Tar, Bz2, Gz, Lz, Xz

NOTE: The tool does not support password-protected archives.

NOTE: The application is built with .NET 8. The respective .NET runtime (if missing) will be deployed as a prerequisite by the application installer.

Configuration file must contain 3 columns, separated by a comma. The default file name is configuration.csv, and the default file location is the same as the source folder.

The first column is the name of the archive entry to be extracted (e.g., test1.txt). If the file is found in any of the archives (in a specified subpath, defined by the third column), it is then unpacked to the destination path. This value also supports simple wildcards * and ?.

The second column is a relative path (e.g., Root\Output). When specified, the file will be unpacked to the corresponding subfolder of the destination path.

The third column is a part of the relative subpath of the entry in archive. If the entry is located in the archive root, the value should be left blank.

Let's imagine we have an archive with the following structure:

📦Archive
 ┣ 📂Subfolder01
 ┃ ┣ 📂Nested
 ┃ ┃ ┣ 📜test05.txt
 ┃ ┃ ┗ 📜test06.txt
 ┃ ┣ 📜test03.txt
 ┃ ┗ 📜test04.txt
 ┣ 📂Subfolder02
 ┃ ┣ 📜test07.txt
 ┃ ┗ 📜test08.txt
 ┣ 📜test01.txt
 ┗ 📜test02.txt
 

Let's consider that we want to extract every even file to the root of the destination directory, and every odd file - to the Output subfolder of the destination directory. Then, the corresponding configuration file will look as follows:

test01.txt,,
test03.txt,,Subfolder01
test05.txt,,Nested
test07.txt,,Subfolder02
test02.txt,Output,
test04.txt,Output,Subfolder01
test06.txt,Output,Subfolder01\Nested
test08.txt,Output,Subfolder02

NOTE: It is not required to provide a relative subpath to archive entries. It is only necessary when archives contain multiple entries with the same file name but located in different subfolders of the archive.

NOTE: It is not necessary to provide the complete relative subpath to the entry in archive. When provided, however, the subpath must include at least the parent path of the entry to be extracted.

The tool can be used from command line or powershell as follows:

  fileextractor -s "<source>" [-d "<destination>"] [-c "<configuration>"] [--cache-configuration]

The application accepts following command line arguments:

  -c, --configuration      Path to a CSV configuration file

  -s, --source             Path to the source directory

  -d, --destination        Path to the destination directory

  --cache-configuration    Save current configuration as default

  --help                   Display this help screen.

  --version                Display version information.

-s or --source /mandatory/ — is the full path to the directory containing archived files. If the argument is not provided or provided directory does not exist, the application will print a warning message and exit.

-d or --destination /optional/ — is the full path to the output directory (where extracted files will be placed). If the argument is not provided, the default output location will be the same as <source>.

-c or --configuration /optional/ — is the full path to the configuration .csv file. If the argument is not provided, the default <source>\configuration.csv path is assumed. If the configuration file does not exist, the application will try to look for the cached configuration.csv file under %programdata%\File Extractor (see --cache-configuration below). If both the configuration file and cached configuration are not available, the application will print a warning message and exit.

--cache-configuration /optional/ — when provided, the application will cache the used configuration .csv file to %programdata%\File Extractor\configuration.csv upon successful extraction.

The help screen and application version can be displayed with the following commands:

  fileextractor --help

  fileextractor --version

NOTE: The tool creates the "File Extractor" folder context menu entry. When executed, the selected folder will be used as the --source argument for the application, <destination> and <configuration> will have their default values (see the description above).

NOTE: The tool generates log files under %programdata%\File Extractor\Logs. The files can be used to check extended application output and error messages.