You’re staring at a gray icon in your iCloud Drive. It’s a ZIP file. Maybe it’s a massive batch of high-res photos from a wedding, or perhaps it’s a set of CAD drawings for a freelance gig. You tap it. Nothing happens except a weird preview screen showing the file size. For years, the consensus was that you needed a Mac or a clunky third-party app from the App Store to actually see what was inside. Honestly? That hasn't been true since iPadOS 13, yet I still see people struggling with it every single day.
If you want to extract zip files iPad users often get told to download WinZip or some ad-riddled utility. Don't do that. Apple baked the functionality directly into the Files app, but because the interface is so minimalist, the "unzip" button is basically invisible. It's just a long-press away.
The Files app is your best friend (mostly)
Apple’s Files app is the unsung hero here. It acts as the central nervous system for your local storage, iCloud, and even third-party services like Dropbox or Google Drive. To get started, you just need to find where that ZIP is hiding. Usually, it’s in your Downloads folder.
Once you find the file, don't just tap it once. Tapping usually just opens the "Quick Look" preview, which is useless for multi-file archives. Instead, long-press the ZIP file. A contextual menu pops up. Look for the word Uncompress.
Tap it.
Immediately, a new folder appears right next to the original ZIP. It has the same name. All your files are inside, unzipped and ready to go. It’s that fast. No progress bars for small files; it just happens. If you’re dealing with a massive 5GB archive, you’ll see a small circular loading indicator on the folder icon, but that’s it.
Why your iPad might be acting weird with ZIPs
Sometimes things go sideways. You try to extract a file and get an error saying the format isn't supported. This usually happens because of how the ZIP was created. If someone used a proprietary encryption method on a Windows machine—like 7-Zip’s specific AES-256 encryption—the native iPadOS tool might choke.
iPadOS is picky.
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It loves standard .zip files. It’s okay with .tar. It mostly handles .gz. But if you have a .rar file? You’re out of luck with the native app. In those specific cases, you actually do need a third-party tool. I usually point people toward iZip or Documents by Readdle. Documents is particularly good because it handles the file management better than Apple’s own app in some scenarios, especially when dealing with nested folders that have weird naming conventions from Linux servers.
Pro tip: Extracting multiple files at once
Let’s say you’re a photographer. You just downloaded ten different ZIP files full of assets. Doing the "long-press and uncompress" dance ten times is a recipe for carpal tunnel.
There’s a better way.
Tap the three dots (...) in the top right corner of the Files app. Hit Select. Now, tap every ZIP file you want to open. Look at the bottom right of the screen. You’ll see another three-dot "More" icon. Tap that and select Uncompress. iPadOS will batch-process every single one of them. It’s a massive time-saver that most people overlook because the "More" button is tucked away in the corner.
Managing the aftermath
One thing that drives me nuts is the clutter. When you extract zip files iPad storage fills up fast. Why? Because the iPad keeps the original ZIP file and the new folder.
If you’re on a 64GB iPad Air, you’re going to run out of space in about five minutes if you’re unzipping 4K video files. Once you’ve confirmed the files are safely in the folder, delete the ZIP archive. Long-press it, hit the red Delete button, and then—this is the part everyone forgets—go to your "Recently Deleted" folder in the sidebar and empty it. Otherwise, that space isn't actually freed up for another 30 days.
Dealing with Password Protected ZIPs
This is a frequent pain point. If you receive a password-protected ZIP, the native Files app can handle it, but the prompt is sometimes buggy. When you tap "Uncompress," a keypad should appear.
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If it doesn't?
Force-close the Files app and try again. If it still fails, this is another "use a third-party app" moment. Apple’s native encryption support is getting better, but it’s not infallible. Experts like those at MacRumors have noted that certain zip-specifications used by older versions of WinRAR still cause issues for the mobile Safari/Files handshake.
Creating your own ZIP files
You can also go the other way. If you need to email a bunch of documents but don't want to send 20 individual attachments, you can "Compress" them into a single file.
- Open the Files app.
- Hit "Select" and grab your files.
- Hit the three dots in the bottom right.
- Tap Compress.
Boom. You have a file named Archive.zip. You can long-press that, rename it to something professional, and shoot it off in an email. It’s much cleaner for the recipient, especially if they are working on a desktop.
Real-world scenario: The "Open In" problem
Sometimes you download a ZIP from Safari and it doesn't go to Files. It opens in a weird "Preview" mode within the browser. If you see this, look for the Share icon (the square with the up arrow). Scroll down the list of apps and select Save to Files.
Choose your location—On My iPad or iCloud Drive—and hit save. Then go into the Files app to do the extraction. Trying to manage ZIP content inside the Safari preview window is a path to madness.
The limits of iPad file management
We have to be honest here: the iPad is not a Mac. While the M1 and M2 chips (and beyond) are powerhouses, the software layer still has guardrails. If you try to extract a ZIP containing file types the iPad doesn't recognize (like .exe or .dmg), you’ll see the files, but you won't be able to do anything with them.
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Also, file path lengths matter. If your ZIP has folders inside folders inside folders, sometimes the Files app will throw a generic "Operation could not be completed" error. If that happens, move the ZIP to the "On My iPad" local storage instead of trying to extract it directly on a cloud drive like Google Drive or OneDrive. The latency of the cloud sync often breaks the extraction process for complex archives.
Next Steps for Success
- Audit your storage: Check Settings > General > iPad Storage before unzipping large files to ensure you have at least double the space of the ZIP file available.
- Move to Local: Always move ZIP files from "iCloud" or "Dropbox" to the "On My iPad" folder before extracting for 3x faster speeds and fewer errors.
- Clean up: Delete the original
.ziparchive immediately after extraction to prevent duplicate storage usage. - Get a backup app: Download Documents by Readdle as a fallback for when the native "Uncompress" option fails on weirdly encrypted files.