Archives

XeFM works with archive files as a first-class feature: you can create archives from selected files, extract them, and browse their contents in place — navigating into an archive as if it were a regular directory, without unpacking it to disk first.

Browse and extract:

Create: everything above except .rar, .cab and .rpm, which XeFM can read but not write — nothing writes RAR but WinRAR, and libarchive has no writer for the other two. Typing one of those names at the create prompt says so rather than quietly making a .tar.gz. A .7z created by XeFM uses LZMA2, the same compression 7-Zip itself writes by default; no format can be given a password (see Supported encryption).

The bottom row needs a system library (see If those formats do not appear below). The rest need nothing at all — Zstandard included, which comes from Python itself rather than from libarchive.

For the complete list of key bindings, see the XeFM User Guide or press F1 in XeFM.

Creating an archive

1. Select the file(s) and/or directories you want to archive (Space to toggle, A to select all files).
2. Press P.
3. Enter a name for the archive (the extension you use determines the format, e.g. .zip or .tar.gz) and confirm.

The archive is created in the other pane. Directories are added recursively. XeFM confirms before creating by default:

CONFIRM_ARCHIVE_CREATE = False   # default: True

Extracting an archive

1. Select the archives you want to unpack — or just put the cursor on one.
2. Press U.
3. Confirm the destination.

Each archive is extracted into its own subdirectory (named after the archive) in the other pane. Anything in the selection that is not an archive — an ordinary file, a directory — is skipped, and the log says how many were passed over. If a destination directory already exists, the confirmation says so before anything is written; files inside it may be overwritten.

Several archives unpack as one operation: one progress dialog for the batch, and Esc stops it where it stands (what has already landed stays). If one archive turns out to be unreadable, it is reported by name and the rest still unpack.

XeFM confirms before extracting by default:

CONFIRM_EXTRACT_ARCHIVE = False   # default: True

Browsing an archive in place

Instead of extracting, you can open an archive and look inside it directly.

1. Position the cursor on the archive file.
2. Press ENTER.

The archive contents appear as a virtual directory — files and folders with their names, sizes, and modification dates, just like a normal directory. The path display shows an archive:// URL with a # separating the archive path from your location inside it, for example archive:///home/user/documents/backup.zip#projects/.

Navigating

An archive browses like any directory: the cursor, paging and open_item all behave as they do in the filesystem, and go_parent at the archive root leaves the archive.

Example: from /home/user/documents/, press ENTER on backup.zip to view archive:///home/user/documents/backup.zip#, ENTER on projects/ to go deeper, then Backspace twice to return to the filesystem.

Viewing files inside an archive

Put the cursor on a file and run view_file. XeFM extracts it to a temporary location, shows it in the built-in viewer (the title shows the full archive path), and cleans up the temporary file automatically when you close the viewer.

Copying files out of an archive

Copying is how you extract individual files or folders from a browsed archive.

1. Select the file(s) or directory you want (Space to select, or just place the cursor on one item).
2. Press C.
3. Choose the destination directory.

Selected files are extracted to the destination; a selected directory is extracted recursively with its full structure. The destination can be a local directory or S3 — XeFM extracts and uploads directly. (Archive → archive is not supported, since archives are read-only.)

Copying to a local destination shows a byte-level progress bar for each file and can be interrupted with Esc part way through a large one; the partly written file is removed. Copying straight to S3 does not yet report progress within a file — extract to a local directory first if you want to be able to stop it.

File details

Press I on an entry to see its details: name, uncompressed and compressed size, compression ratio, modification time, permissions, archive type, and the internal path within the archive.

Sorting

Sort the archive listing with the same quick-sort actions used everywhere in XeFM — quick_sort_name, quick_sort_ext, quick_sort_size and quick_sort_date, or the sort dialog.

Directories are always listed first, regardless of sort mode.

Searching inside an archive

While browsing an archive, find_files opens the filename search dialog. Enter a pattern (wildcards like *.txt work) and XeFM lists matching files with their full paths inside the archive. Press ENTER on a result to jump to it. The search covers the current archive only, starting from your current location and descending recursively. Large archives show a progress indicator while the search runs.

Dual-pane and archives

Archive browsing works with XeFM’s two panes: browse an archive in one pane while a regular directory (or a different archive) is shown in the other, and copy files between them. The pane-sync actions work between panes, and work with archives too.

Password-protected archives

XeFM can extract and browse password-protected archives — ZIP always, and 7z where the system library supports it (see Supported encryption). When a password is needed, XeFM prompts for it in a masked field — typed characters show as •, and the value can’t be copied or cut from the field.

Extracting a password-protected archive

1. Put the cursor on the encrypted archive (or select it among others) and run extract_archive.
2. Confirm the destination as usual.
3. XeFM detects that the archive is encrypted and asks for its password. In a batch the prompt appears when that archive’s turn comes, so each encrypted archive is asked for separately.
4. Enter the password and press Enter. The archive extracts into a subdirectory in the other pane.

If the password is wrong, XeFM says so and asks again — nothing is written to disk until the password is confirmed correct, so a wrong password never leaves a half-extracted folder behind. Press Esc to cancel.

Viewing a file inside a password-protected archive

1. Press ENTER on the archive to browse it. The file list is readable without a password.
2. Open a file inside it (ENTER, or V to view).
3. XeFM asks for the archive’s password the first time you open a file from it.
4. Enter the password. The file opens in the built-in viewer.

The password is remembered for the rest of the session, so you’re only asked once per archive. Extracting an archive and later browsing the same archive share the remembered password.

Supported encryption

• Legacy ZipCrypto (the “traditional PKWARE” encryption produced by zip -e, most OS “compress with password” tools, and many archivers) is fully supported.
• AES-encrypted ZIP (WinZip AES) is not supported — the Python runtime XeFM builds on can’t decrypt it.
• Encrypted 7z cannot be read on any platform. libarchive decrypts ZIP and nothing else, so an encrypted .7z lists its filenames and then refuses its contents. XeFM detects this and says so, rather than asking for a password no answer would satisfy.
• Creating an encrypted archive is not supported in any format. XeFM reads password-protected archives; it does not make them.

Where XeFM cannot decrypt an archive it says “its encryption is not supported” and does not prompt, rather than rejecting every password you type. TAR archives (.tar, .tar.gz, .tar.bz2, .tar.xz) are never encrypted.

Passwords are held only in memory for the running session — never written to disk or logged — and are sent to the archive as UTF-8 bytes (plain ASCII passwords always work).

Read-only browsing

When you browse an archive in place, its contents are read-only. You can copy files out, view them, browse, and search — but you cannot delete, move, or copy files into a browsed archive; XeFM shows an explanatory message if you try. To change an archive’s contents, extract it (U), edit the files, and create a new archive (P).

Other notes:

• Nested archives are shown as plain files; extract the inner archive first, then browse it.
• 7z and RAR entries are read one at a time. Those archives are usually one compressed block, so opening a file near the end means decompressing what comes before it. Browsing and viewing single files is fine; extracting the whole archive with U is the efficient way to get everything out.
• Symbolic links inside archives are shown but may not extract correctly on all platforms, and file permissions may not be fully preserved.

If those formats do not appear

7z, RAR, ISO, CAB, cpio and RPM are not something Python can handle on its own: XeFM uses libarchive, a system library. If pressing Enter on one of those files opens it in the viewer instead of browsing into it — or if typing a .7z name at the create prompt produces a .tar.gz — XeFM did not find a usable one. (ZIP, TAR and .tar.zst are unaffected; they never go near it.)

Press F1 and scroll to “Archive Formats”. That table is built when XeFM starts, so it lists exactly what this copy can open and create, and the line under it names the libarchive in use:

Using libarchive 3.7.4 zlib/1.2.12 liblzma/5.4.3 bz2lib/1.0.8 — /usr/lib/libarchive.dylib

A format missing from the table is one the library was built without the pieces for; XeFM leaves it out rather than offering it and failing later. If no library was found the line says so instead, with the reason, and the log pane (L) carries the same message. What to do about it:

• macOS — nothing to install. The built-in /usr/lib/libarchive.dylib is new enough, and the desktop app uses that same system copy.
• Linux — install your distribution’s libarchive package (libarchive13, libarchive, …) if it is not already present.

• Windows — Windows has no system libarchive. The desktop app ships one and needs no setup. For the terminal version, download archive.dll from xefm-bin-deps — the build XeFM’s own desktop app uses — and point XeFM at it:

  setx LIBARCHIVE "C:\path\to\libarchive-3.8.9-windows-x64\bin\archive.dll"
  

  The variable is read when XeFM starts, so open a new terminal afterwards.

To use a specific library rather than the system one, set LIBARCHIVE to its full path before starting XeFM:

export LIBARCHIVE=/opt/libarchive/lib/libarchive.so

Nothing else changes when libarchive is missing — ZIP and TAR keep working exactly as before, and those files simply behave like ordinary files. You can still hand them to an external unpacker with a FILE_ASSOCIATIONS entry (see File Associations) if you would rather not install anything.

Tips

• Use find_files to find files quickly in large archives instead of browsing by hand.
• Select several files before pressing C to extract them all at once.
• Check sizes with I before extracting large entries.
• Keep the destination visible in one pane while browsing the archive in the other.

See Also

• File Operations — copy, move, and progress display
• XeFM User Guide — complete documentation