Unveiler

A GTK4/libadwaita archive manager for Linux, built on 7-Zip 26.01. Unveiler brings the familiar Windows 7-Zip experience to Linux, making it easy for former Windows users to feel right at home.

Features

• Browse and extract archives with a native GNOME interface
• Supports 7z, ZIP, RAR, TAR, GZ, BZ2, XZ, Zstd, CAB, ISO, WIM, RPM, DEB, CPIO, ARJ, LZH, DMG, and more
• Drag-and-drop extraction!
• Search within archives
• Password-protected archive support
• Column sorting (name, size, date)

Building

Dependencies

• GCC/G++
• GTK 4
• libadwaita
• pkg-config

On Ubuntu/Debian:

sudo apt install build-essential libgtk-4-dev libadwaita-1-dev pkg-config python3

Compile

# 1. Build the 7z.so codec plugin
cd 7zip-main/CPP/7zip/Bundles/Format7zF
make -f makefile.gcc -j$(nproc)
cd -

# Then build:
make

Run (without installing)

cp 7zip-main/CPP/7zip/Bundles/Format7zF/_o/7z.so _o/
_o/unveiler

Install

sudo make install

Installs to /usr/local by default. Use PREFIX=/opt/unveiler for a custom location.

Architecture

Unveiler loads 7-Zip's 7z.so plugin at runtime through a C bridge layer:

┌──────────────┐     ┌──────────────┐     ┌──────────┐
│  GTK4 App    │───▶│  C Bridge    │───▶│  7z.so   │
│  (C / GLib)  │     │  (C++ / COM) │     │  (7-Zip) │
└──────────────┘     └──────────────┘     └──────────┘

• src/ — GTK4 application (pure C)
• bridge/ — C API wrapping 7-Zip's COM-style IInArchive interface
• 7zip-main/ — upstream 7-Zip source (builds 7z.so)

License

Unveiler bridge and application code: GPLv3

7-Zip source code: see 7zip-main/DOC/License.txt (LGPL + unRAR restriction)