A fast, safe, offline archive extractor for everyday archives and game mods. ZIP, TAR, and single-file compression work with Python's standard library plus the small dependencies installed with RiftUnpack. No account, cloud upload, telemetry, or password guessing.
Real screenshot: the desktop app extracting two sample archives (Linux, Xvfb).
v1.0.3 — Python 3.10+. Tested on Windows and Linux in CI. Windows portable executables (
RiftUnpack.exe,RiftUnpack-GUI.exe) are attached to the GitHub Release.
- Detects archive formats from file signatures, not just extensions.
- Extracts one or many archives, scans folders (optionally recursively), filters members with masks, lists contents, and checks integrity (CRC).
- Blocks path traversal (Zip Slip), symbolic links, special files, decompression bombs, excessive file counts, and excessive compression ratios.
- Prompts for passwords (no brute force), extracts nested archives up to a depth cap, applies overwrite/skip/rename conflict policies, and overrides legacy filename encodings.
- Runs archive batches in parallel (
-j). - Provides a CLI and a Tkinter desktop window with progress, log, password prompt, and cancel.
Status reflects what the automated test suite exercises with real archive files. "Experimental" means the code path exists but RiftUnpack's tests do not verify it with real files yet.
| Format | How it is read | Status |
|---|---|---|
| ZIP | Built in (zipfile). ZipCrypto built in; AES needs 7-Zip |
Tested |
| TAR, TAR.GZ, TAR.BZ2, TAR.XZ | Built in (tarfile) |
Tested |
| GZ, BZ2, XZ | Built in single-stream decompression | Tested |
| ZST | Single-stream decompression with zstandard (installed by .[all-formats]) |
Tested |
| 7z | py7zr (base install); falls back to 7-Zip when py7zr cannot read the archive |
Tested, including password and split .7z.001 via 7-Zip |
| ISO | libarchive-c (needs the native libarchive library) |
Tested on Linux CI |
| CAB | libarchive (uncompressed CABs are tested on any platform with libarchive); makecab-built CABs tested on Windows only | Partly tested; compressed CABs experimental |
| RAR | rarfile with UnRAR/unar/bsdtar/7-Zip; without one, libarchive reads it, then 7-Zip |
Partly tested: uncompressed RAR4 read through libarchive (hand-built fixture). Compressed RAR and RAR5 are experimental |
Split ZIP .zip.001 |
7-Zip | Tested |
Split RAR .partN.rar, ZIP .z01 |
Detected and grouped; extraction depends on the external tool | Experimental |
Missing backends are reported with the exact package or tool to install. Filename encodings default to the format's standard rules (UTF-8 for ZIP when flagged). Legacy names can be decoded with --encoding cp866, cp1251, or shift_jis; these three are covered by tests.
git clone https://github.com/GhosTnever-lkm/riftunpack.git
cd riftunpack
python -m pip install .
# Optional: libarchive (ISO) and Zstandard (ZST)
python -m pip install '.[all-formats]'- ZIP, TAR, GZ, BZ2, XZ and 7z work after the base install.
- ZIP AES archives and fallbacks for hard 7z archives need 7-Zip (
7z/7zaon PATH). - RAR needs an UnRAR, unar, or 7-Zip executable.
- The desktop app needs Tkinter. On Linux install it with your package manager (for example
python3-tk).
For development:
python -m pip install -e '.[dev,all-formats]'riftunpack extract ./modpack.zip # sibling folder: modpack_extracted/
riftunpack extract ./mods-a.7z ./mods-b.tar.gz -o ./unpacked -j 2
riftunpack extract ./game-mods -r --include '*.pak' --include '*.ini'
riftunpack extract ./bundle.zip --deep --max-depth 3 --conflict rename
riftunpack extract ./protected.zip --password # prompts securely
riftunpack extract ./legacy.zip --encoding cp866
riftunpack extract ./encrypted-aes.zip --seven-zip 'C:\Tools\7z.exe' # custom 7-Zip for fallbacks
riftunpack list ./modpack.zip
riftunpack test ./modpack.zipDefaults: 20 GB expanded size per archive (--max-size-gb), 100,000 files (--max-files), and a 1000:1 compression ratio (--max-ratio). Nested extraction is off unless --deep is given.
Run riftunpack-gui (or python -m riftunpack.gui). Add files or a folder, choose the destination, and extract. Drag-and-drop works when tkinterdnd2 is available (it is installed with RiftUnpack). Password prompts and cancel are available while a batch runs.
Experimental: the script registers a per-user context-menu entry, but it is not covered by automated tests.
python packaging/install_context_menu.py "C:\path\to\RiftUnpack.exe"This adds Extract here with RiftUnpack for the current Windows user (no administrator rights). Remove it with python packaging/uninstall_context_menu.py.
pip install -e . pyinstaller
pyinstaller --noconfirm --clean --onefile --name RiftUnpack --paths src packaging/cli_entry.py
pyinstaller --noconfirm --clean --onefile --windowed --name RiftUnpack-GUI --paths src packaging/gui_entry.pyThe release workflow builds these two executables on Windows, smoke-tests them (extracts ZIP and 7z fixtures from the command line), and publishes them to the GitHub Release for the version in pyproject.toml.
Archive member names are validated before any write. Extraction happens in a private staging directory inside the destination; only safe regular files are then moved into place. Symbolic links and special filesystem objects are rejected. Size, file-count, and compression-ratio limits are configurable; do not raise them for untrusted archives unless you understand the risk. Passwords are kept in memory only for the current run (the desktop app keeps a password you set for its session) and are never written to disk or guessed.
Known limitation: the 7-Zip fallback receives the password as a command-line argument, so it can be visible to other users on the same machine while 7-Zip runs. Prefer the built-in readers when possible.
pytest
ruff check .
mypySee STATE.md for the audit report, known issues, and next steps, and CHANGELOG.md for release history.
MIT. See LICENSE.
archive-extractor · unarchiver · python · zip · 7z · game-modding · modding-tools · offline · security