In many scenarios, we will have a requirements for handling to create zip archives or extract files from existing archives with programmatically . From PowerShell 5.0, it provided two cmdlet for creating and extracting zip files. The Compress-Archive cmdlet enables you to create new archives from folders or individual files to add files to archives; Extract-Archive can be used to unzip files. Let we get in to this with very two simple example.
Example #1 : Create an Simple archive file
The below command will zip the Dotnethelpers_PowershellArticles folder and create an archive called PowershellArticles.zip in the Archives folder:
–Path : Parameter to specify the folder/file path which you want to compress.
–DestinationPath : Parameter to specify the name of the archive.
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############################################################ #Project : Simple Compress example #Developer : Thiyagu S (dotnet-helpers.com) #Tools : PowerShell 5.1.15063.1155 #E-Mail : mail2thiyaguji@gmail.com ############################################################ Compress-Archive -Path C:\PowerShell\ZipTest\Dotnethelpers_PowershellArticles -DestinationPath C:\PowerShell\ZipTest\PowershellArticles.zip |
Example: 2 : Create an archive file using -LiteralPath
The below command creates PowerShellMVCArticles.Zip file by compressing two folders that is Dotnethelpers_PowershellArticles and PowerShellMVCArticles.Zip specified by the LiteralPath parameter instead of -path cmdlet.
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############################################################ #Project : Create an archive file using -LiteralPath and -Update #Developer : Thiyagu S (dotnet-helpers.com) #Tools : PowerShell 5.1.15063.1155 #E-Mail : mail2thiyaguji@gmail.com ############################################################ Compress-Archive -LiteralPath 'C:\PowerShell\ZipTest\Dotnethelpers_PowershellArticles', 'C:\PowerShell\ZipTest\Dotnet-helpers_MVC_Articles' -CompressionLevel Optimal -Update -DestinationPath CPowerShellMVCArticles.Zip |
- -LiteralPath: Instead of -Path cmdlet, here we can use multiple paths, and include files in multiple locations in your output zipped file
- -Update : If you are not using the -update cmdlet for compressing the existing zip files, which having same name then poweshell will throw the below error. In this scenario we need to use -Update which will command the script to overwrite, if file is already existing in the same destination location and update compression with newer versions of existing files.
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Compress-Archive : The archive file C:\PowerShell\ZipTest\PowerShellMVCArticles.Zip already exists. Use the -Update parameter to update the existing archive file or use the -Force parameter to overwrite the existing archive file. At line:2 char:1 + Compress-Archive -LiteralPath 'C:\PowerShell\ZipTest\Dotnethelpers_Po ... + ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ + CategoryInfo : InvalidArgument: (C:\PowerShell\Z...MVCArticles.Zip:String) [Compress-Archive], IOException + FullyQualifiedErrorId : ArchiveFileExists,Compress-Archive |
- -CompressionLevel : Here i had mentioned the compression level as Optimal, this indicate how much compression to apply when you are creating the archive file. If compression level parameter is not specified in our script the the command uses the default value as Optimal.
Fastest: This method available to decrease processing time; this can result in larger file sizes.
NoCompression: Do not compress the source files.
Optimal: Processing time is dependent on file size.
OUTPUT
What do you think?
I hope you have an idea of How to Use PowerShell to create compressed ZIP files. I would like to have feedback from my posts readers. Your valuable feedback, question, or comments about this article are always welcome.