You probably have noticed that while inside Google Drive, one cannot easily extract nor preview zipped files straight from Drive's interface. Google Drive is still deprived of that native functionality and one has to manually download the entire archived file to obtain its contents.
I've been using Google Drive since its initial rollout. Although not my main virtual drive for backups, I use it primarily to store personal documents and some work-related files. And Google Drive being developed by Google gives you tight integrations with other G Apps.
And for occasions when you need to recover a file inside a large compressed ZIP file hosted on Google Drive, you better skip the hassle of manually downloading it yourself and just browse it on-the-fly.
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Here we will show you a smarter way to unzip archived files and browse extracted straight from Google Drive.
Browse Contents Inside Zipped Files On Google Drive
The trick is easy. While you're on your Drive's folder, just right-click any zipped file and click on Connect more apps. Just search for “Zip Extractor”.
Once installed, refresh your Drive's page. You can right-click again the zip file and Google Drive now gives you the option to open it with Zip Extractor.
Zip Extractor will prompt you a one-time authorization request so it can do its thing. After that, you can unzip and browse zipped files with its neat interface. You can also selectively extract specific files inside a zipped file. Just uncheck
Another decent Drive app is Zip, Unzip App. Just like Zip Extractor, it lets you preview and browse zip files straight from Google Drive. What I like about Zip, Unzip App is that it quickly gives you a unique URL for each file found inside your zip file. The UI may need attention though but for a simple task of obtaining a specific file inside a ZIP file on Google Drive? I would go for Zip, Unzip App.
Conclusion
There you go! Google Drive definitely needs a lot of catching up when it comes to dealing with common file types like ZIP files. Being able to preview what's inside a zipped file is already a built-in feature in DropBox, but not in Google Drive.
