Do you have received documents, like word, excel, ppt, pdf, txt, page, number, html, jpeg, epub, chm, compressed in ZIP or RAR formats on iPhone? Want to open zip files on iPhone or open rar files on iPhone? Some people may zip files into one RAR or ZIP file for easier transfer and management. When you received email attachment in ZIP or RAR format on iPhone, you need to use a professional file manager app in order to open and view Zip and RAR files.
Since iOS 13, you can zip and unzip files using the Files app on your iPhone and iPad without need for a third-party app.
How to Unzip Files or Open Zip Files on iPhone?
We recommend you this file manager for iPhone. It is currently free on App Store, it is powerful and very easy to use. To use it to open and read Zip files or RAR files on iPhone, you can tap on the ZIP or RAR file from your email attachment or elsewhere, you will then get an Open in or Open with third-party app prompt, choose FileMaster from the compatible apps list, the selected ZIP or RAR file will be added to FileMaster app. See below screenshot.
Now simply touch the compressed or zipped file, you will get a pop-up dialogue, saying “Unzip to current folder”. Tap on Confirm, the zip or rar file will be unzipped. This is the easiest way to unarchive or decompress files on iPhone. Before you unzip the RAR or ZIP file, you can also create a new folder, move the zip or rar file there, then decompress the RAR or ZIP file on iPhone.
Import, export files with ease
With this iPhone file manager app, you can not only open files from other apps, but also share files with other apps. It is very easy to exchange files between the file manager and other apps on your iPhone or iPad. If you want to transfer files between iPhone, iPad and computers, this is also a great help. Check out this guide to transfer Photos, Videos, Music and more files between iPhone and computer over Wi-Fi for FREE.
Another great unzip, unarchive solution for iOS
Unfortunately the above file manager has its own limitations. For example, it can only unarchive ZIP and RAR files; it doesn’t allow us to preview files contained in an archive file before unarchiving them; we can’t select only part of the files in an archive file to extract. If you run into these problems, you can refer to this guide to unarchive files on iPhone iPad with a more powerful unzip tool.
Update Aug 2019: this article was originally published in Oct 2015 and has since been updated. in this update, we added another great unzip app to the above post.