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32 lines
1.3 KiB
Markdown
32 lines
1.3 KiB
Markdown
# Check What Is Inside A Zip File
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Before unzipping a file, it can be useful to check the contents. You can learn a
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few things from doing this. First off, are all the files nested under some extra
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top-level directory? How many files are in there? How big are certain files? Etc.
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The `-l` flag to `unzip` can help answer these questions.
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```bash
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❯ unzip -l zipped-files.zip
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Archive: zipped-files.zip
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Length Date Time Name
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--------- ---------- ----- ----
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0 08-22-2026 08:54 files-to-zip/
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14 08-22-2026 08:54 files-to-zip/data.json
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38 08-22-2026 08:53 files-to-zip/notes.md
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14 08-22-2026 08:53 files-to-zip/hello.txt
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--------- -------
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66 4 files
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```
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Notice that the first line is for `files-to-zip/` which tells us that everything
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is nested under the top-level directory that was probably the target of the
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`zip` command. Everything is organized into a table with labeled columns which
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allows us to answer our questions and get a good idea of what is in there.
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In my experience, zip files tend to have dozens to hundreds of files, so it is
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even better to pipe the above to a pager like `less`. That way you can search
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and navigate through everything that's in there.
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See `man unzip` for more details.
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