ZAR Explorer

ZAR Explorer 0.2.0 is a Windows desktop application for browsing, searching, previewing, creating, and selectively extracting ZArchive files. It is designed to inspect large archives without needing to unpack everything first.

Built with C# and Windows Forms on .NET 10, it uses ZArchiveSharp.

Features

Browse and inspect

• Open .zar and .wua archives.
• Navigate through directory trees and inspect filenames, archive paths, and file sizes.
• Search archive contents recursively.
• Use wildcard patterns such as *.exe, *.dll, and *.json, or search with ordinary text such as eboot.
• Preview text files and inspect binary files in hexadecimal format. Previews are limited to the first 64 KiB.
• View archive information, including entry count, on-disk size, and total uncompressed size.

Extract files

• Extract selected files without unpacking unrelated archive entries.
• Extract selected directories or the complete archive.
• Preserve archive folder paths or extract selected files by name.
• Configure how existing files are handled.
• Monitor progress and cancel an active operation.
• Export an archive inventory to CSV.

Create archives

• Create a new archive from selected files or folder contents.
• Add a folder's contents at the archive root, or preserve the selected folder name as a top-level directory.
• Preserve nested directory paths.
• Monitor compression progress and cancel an active operation.
• Use parallel block compression provided by ZArchiveSharp.

Archive creation produces a new archive; it does not modify an existing archive in place. The source files are read from disk and are not intentionally modified.

Download

Download the Windows x64 release ZIP from the project's GitHub Releases page.

Extract the ZIP to a folder and launch ZarExplorer.exe. The release is packaged as a self-contained application, so a separate .NET runtime installation should not be necessary.

Usage

Browse an archive

1. Open a .zar or .wua archive.
2. Navigate using the directory tree or enter a search term.
3. Double-click a directory to browse it, or select a file to preview it.
4. Select files or folders and choose an extraction operation.

Search

Ordinary text searches match names and paths. Wildcards are also supported:

• *.exe — executable filenames
• *.dll — DLL filenames
• *.json — JSON filenames
• sce_sys/*.json — JSON paths matching that pattern

Searches are recursive across the archive.

Create an archive

1. Choose Create archive.
2. Add individual files or select a folder.
3. Choose Add folder contents to put the folder's contents at the archive root, or Add folder with root name to retain the selected folder as the top-level directory.
4. Choose an output path and create the archive.
5. Open the resulting archive to verify its contents.

For PS5-related workflows, verify the internal layout required by the target tool before using a newly created archive. In particular, check the positions of eboot.bin, sce_sys, and any other required directories.

Extract files

1. Select one or more files or folders.
2. Choose Extract selected, or use the folder/full-archive extraction options.
3. Choose a destination directory.
4. Configure whether archive paths should be preserved and how existing files should be handled.

Extracting individual files does not require unpacking unrelated archive entries.

Build from source

Requirements:

• Windows x64
• .NET 10 SDK
• Internet access for the initial NuGet restore

Clone the repository, open a terminal in its root directory, and run:

dotnet restore .\ZarExplorer.csproj -r win-x64

dotnet build .\ZarExplorer.csproj `
    -c Release `
    -r win-x64 `
    --no-restore

dotnet publish .\ZarExplorer.csproj `
    -c Release `
    -r win-x64 `
    --self-contained true `
    -p:PublishSingleFile=true `
    -p:IncludeNativeLibrariesForSelfExtract=true `
    --no-restore `
    -o .\publish

The published application will be in .\publish\.

Automated builds and releases

GitHub Actions builds the application and publishes a Windows x64 release when a version tag such as v0.2.0 is pushed. Releases include the portable application ZIP and a SHA-256 checksum file.

Limitations

• Archive creation and extraction have been tested with representative files and nested folders.
• Empty directories that contain no files are not guaranteed to be represented in a newly created archive.
• Preview is limited to the first 64 KiB of a file.
• Searches and inventory exports may take time on archives containing many entries.
• Drag-and-drop into the Create Archive dialog is not currently implemented.
• The application creates new archives; it does not edit an existing archive in place.
• Compatibility with every ZArchive variant and every external tool has not been established.

License

ZAR Explorer is distributed under the MIT License. See LICENSE.

Third-party dependency licensing information is available in THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md.