Archives and disc images
Press Enter on a recognized archive or disc image to open it as a read-only filesystem. Browse it like a directory, use F3 to view files, or copy entries to a writable location in the other pane.
At the root, open .. or press Backspace to return to the directory containing the archive or image. Newt keeps the mount alive while it remains reachable through pane history.
Archives
Section titled “Archives”Supported archive families include:
| Family | Formats |
|---|---|
| TAR | .tar, gzip, bzip2, xz, and zstd-compressed TAR files |
| CPIO | .cpio and gzip, bzip2, xz, and zstd-compressed CPIO files |
| ar (static libraries and Debian packages) | .a, .ar, and .deb |
| ZIP | .zip, .jar, .war, .ear, .apk, and .ipa |
| 7z | .7z |
| Compressed file | .gz, .bz2, .xz, .zst, and .zstd when the name is not TAR or CPIO |
See Filesystem capabilities for the format variants and compression methods Newt can read.
These extensions are built-in file associations. An association can browse other names as one of these formats, such as a .nupkg as ZIP, or make Enter open an archive in its application instead. Browse Into opens any file whose first bytes identify a supported archive or disc image, whatever its name (an old V7 TAR, which has no ustar header, still needs its extension or an association).
Archives can be nested: opening an archive inside another archive creates another temporary filesystem. They can also be opened from other backends, including S3 and SFTP.
A bare compressed file opens as a one-entry filesystem: notes.txt.gz
contains an entry named notes.txt. Its decompressed size appears once
background indexing finishes, and it has no mode, owner, or timestamp
metadata.
Large and remote archives
Section titled “Large and remote archives”TAR, CPIO, ar, and bare compressed files are indexed in the background, and
their listings appear progressively. You can view, preview, or copy a member
as soon as indexing has passed it, so a file near the start of a large
.tar.gz on S3 opens without waiting for the rest. Indexing pauses while
nothing is using the archive and resumes when you return to it. Memory use is
bounded, so even multi-terabyte compressed images can be opened, though a read
deep in a very large stream may first decode up to a few gigabytes.
ZIP files are read by range after their index loads, so opening one on S3 or another remote filesystem does not download the whole archive. 7z archives are also indexed before their contents appear; in solid archives, opening an entry deep in a compressed block can take a while, with progress shown.
Encrypted archives
Section titled “Encrypted archives”For encrypted ZIP files (ZipCrypto and WinZip AES), the listing remains browsable and Newt asks for the password when you first read an encrypted entry. A wrong password prompts again; cancelling only cancels that read.
For 7z, Newt asks for the password while mounting if the archive encrypts its header, since filenames cannot otherwise be listed. If only entry data is encrypted, the first read prompts instead.
Unusual and damaged entries
Section titled “Unusual and damaged entries”- If several members have the same path, the last one is listed and read. When a name is both a member and a folder implied by later members, the later entry wins, so copying out never writes through a link the archive placed where a folder is expected.
- Members whose paths climb out of the archive, such as
../../.bashrc, are not listed. - Every member, including shadowed ones, remains visible in the viewer’s Structure mode, from which its bytes can be saved.
- A TAR, CPIO, or ar stream that is cut off still mounts. Entries before the cut remain available and the listing is marked partial (archive truncated). Corrupt compressed data prevents mounting.
- Entries using an unsupported compression method stay listed but report an error when opened.
Create an archive
Section titled “Create an archive”Archive contents are read-only, but you can pack files into a new archive: select them and press Alt + F5, or choose Pack into archive from the Copy dialog. Newt can create ZIP, 7z, TAR, TAR.GZ, TAR.XZ, and TAR.ZST files. ZIP and 7z support optional AES-256 encryption. A 7z archive keeps its file names visible even when its contents are encrypted.
The archive is created in the other pane, named after the selected entry, or the current directory when several are selected. The dialog opens on ZIP on Windows and TAR.ZST elsewhere; the default format and compression levels are in archive settings. If the archive already exists, Newt offers to overwrite it.
Archives can be packed straight to S3 or another remote filesystem without a full temporary copy first; 7z to S3 is the exception and may use a temporary file. All selected entries must be on one filesystem, which matters for search results that span mounts. Hard links are stored as independent copies.
Disc images
Section titled “Disc images”Newt opens .iso and .udf images containing:
- ISO 9660, including Joliet and Rock Ridge extensions;
- UDF versions 1.02 through 2.60, including metadata partitions.
Disc images are read by range rather than downloaded or indexed in full, so you can browse a large image on S3 and copy or view an individual file without fetching the whole image. Entries the image marks as hidden show as hidden files.
Disc-image contents are read-only. Raw-sector formats such as BIN/CUE and NRG are not supported, nor are images of packet-written rewritable media, multi-session images, or zisofs compression. An El Torito boot image is not shown as a file.