Lazy ZIP Explorer

Explore and download files from remote ZIP archives — without downloading the entire archive.

Lazy ZIP Explorer uses HTTP Range requests to read only the ZIP metadata, letting you browse and selectively download files from multi-gigabyte archives while fetching just a few kilobytes of data.

Desktop App

A cross-platform desktop application built with Tauri + Svelte.

Features

• Browse remote ZIPs — paste a URL and instantly see the file tree
• Selective downloads — download individual files or entire folders
• Concurrent workers — configurable parallel downloads (default: 10 workers)
• Smart skip — detects existing files and lets you skip or re-download
• Bandwidth stats — shows total ZIP size vs. data actually fetched
• Dark mode — premium dark UI with indigo accents

Download

Grab the latest release for your platform from the Releases page:

Platform	Format
macOS (Apple Silicon)	.dmg
macOS (Intel)	.dmg
Windows	.msi / .exe
Linux	.deb / .AppImage

Build from source

# Prerequisites: Rust, Node.js 20+
git clone https://github.com/alenpaulvarghese/Remote-Zip-Peek.git
cd Remote-Zip-Peek/desktop
npm install
npm run tauri build

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Python Library

A synchronous Python library for scripting.

pip install maturin
cd lazy-zip
maturin develop

import lazy_zip

with lazy_zip.RemoteZip("https://example.com/files.zip") as z:
    for entry in z.files:
        print(entry.name, entry.size, entry.is_dir)

    data = z.read("path/in/zip/file.txt")
    z.read_to_file("path/in/zip/file.txt", "/tmp/output.txt")

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How It Works

ZIP files store their Central Directory at the end of the file. Lazy ZIP uses HTTP Range requests to:

1. Fetch the last few bytes to locate the Central Directory
2. Fetch only the Central Directory to build the file tree
3. When downloading, stream only the specific byte range for that file

This means you can explore a 10 GB ZIP by downloading only a few kilobytes, then selectively download a 5 MB file without touching the other 9.995 GB.

Project Structure

Crate	Description
core/	lazy-zip-core — HTTP reader, ZIP explorer, downloader
desktop/	Tauri + SvelteKit desktop app
python/	PyO3 Python bindings

License

This project is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0.

Keywords & Tags

rust, zip, tauri, svelte, http-range, remote-file, partial-download, bandwidth-saver, desktop-app