~~Title: Archives ~~
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Directory Opus supports many different archive formats. Support for Zip files (the most common Windows archiving format) is built-in to the program, and many other formats (like RAR, 7-zip, ISO, etc) are supported via a plugin system.

==Archives behave like folders==

Whether support for a format is built-in or implemented via a plugin, Opus lets you treat all supported archive formats as if they were normal folders.

Double-clicking a supported archive format will navigate into it just like a folder, and you can copy files out of it, or view its contents directly, just like normal files. For the formats that support creating archives, you can add files to an archive using the normal copy functions like copy-and-paste or drag-and-drop.

==Archive format options==

There are a large number of options in Preferences that you can use to configure archive support in Opus.

For Zip files, see the **[[:preferences:preferences_categories:zip_and_other_archives:zip_file_options|Zip & Other Archives / Zip Files]]** page.


For all other formats see the **[[:preferences:preferences_categories:zip_and_other_archives:archive_and_vfs_plugins|Zip & Other Archives / Archive and VFS Plugins]]** page.

You can also choose whether archives are shown in the folder tree with the **Show in Folder Tree** setting on the **[[:preferences:preferences_categories:folder_tree:contents|Folder Tree / Contents]]** page.

==Creating new archives==

The **Archive Files** button on the default toolbar lets you add selected files to a new archive. The drop-down attached to that button contains a number of additional archive-related commands that let you create or extract archive files.

==Archive context menu==

Extensive control of archives is also provided for supported formats via the context menu - you can configure which context menu items are displayed for each format from the **[[:preferences:preferences_categories:zip_and_other_archives:archive_context_menu|Zip & Other Archives / Archive Context Menu]]** page in Preferences.

==Disabling archive formats==

If you want to disable support in Opus for a certain format you can do that from the **[[:preferences:preferences_categories:zip_and_other_archives|Zip & Other Archives]]** Preferences section.

==Archives file type group==

By default all the archive formats that Opus supports are included in the **Archives** [[:file_types:file_type_groups|file type group]]. You can use this group to change the double-click actions, or add context menu items, for all supported archive formats at once.