How to unzip files programmatically in Android?

Question

Had peno's version optimised a bit. The increase in performance is perceptible.

private boolean unpackZip(String path, String zipname)
{       
     InputStream is;
     ZipInputStream zis;
     try 
     {
         String filename;
         is = new FileInputStream(path + zipname);
         zis = new ZipInputStream(new BufferedInputStream(is));          
         ZipEntry ze;
         byte[] buffer = new byte[1024];
         int count;

         while ((ze = zis.getNextEntry()) != null) 
         {
             filename = ze.getName();

             // Need to create directories if not exists, or
             // it will generate an Exception...
             if (ze.isDirectory()) {
                File fmd = new File(path + filename);
                fmd.mkdirs();
                continue;
             }

             FileOutputStream fout = new FileOutputStream(path + filename);

             while ((count = zis.read(buffer)) != -1) 
             {
                 fout.write(buffer, 0, count);             
             }

             fout.close();               
             zis.closeEntry();
         }

         zis.close();
     } 
     catch(IOException e)
     {
         e.printStackTrace();
         return false;
     }

    return true;
}

Based on Vasily Sochinsky's answer a bit tweaked & with a small fix:

public static void unzip(File zipFile, File targetDirectory) throws IOException {
    ZipInputStream zis = new ZipInputStream(
            new BufferedInputStream(new FileInputStream(zipFile)));
    try {
        ZipEntry ze;
        int count;
        byte[] buffer = new byte[8192];
        while ((ze = zis.getNextEntry()) != null) {
            File file = new File(targetDirectory, ze.getName());
            File dir = ze.isDirectory() ? file : file.getParentFile();
            if (!dir.isDirectory() && !dir.mkdirs())
                throw new FileNotFoundException("Failed to ensure directory: " +
                        dir.getAbsolutePath());
            if (ze.isDirectory())
                continue;
            FileOutputStream fout = new FileOutputStream(file);
            try {
                while ((count = zis.read(buffer)) != -1)
                    fout.write(buffer, 0, count);
            } finally {
                fout.close();
            }
            /* if time should be restored as well
            long time = ze.getTime();
            if (time > 0)
                file.setLastModified(time);
            */
        }
    } finally {
        zis.close();
    }
}

Notable differences

• public static - this is a static utility method that can be anywhere.
• 2 File parameters because String are :/ for files and one could not specify where the zip file is to be extracted before. Also path + filename concatenation > https://stackoverflow.com/a/412495/995891
• throws - because catch late - add a try catch if really not interested in them.
• actually makes sure that the required directories exist in all cases. Not every zip contains all the required directory entries in advance of file entries. This had 2 potential bugs:
  • if the zip contains an empty directory and instead of the resulting directory there is an existing file, this was ignored. The return value of mkdirs() is important.
  • could crash on zip files that don't contain directories.
• increased write buffer size, this should improve performance a bit. Storage is usually in 4k blocks and writing in smaller chunks is usually slower than necessary.
• uses the magic of finally to prevent resource leaks.

So

unzip(new File("/sdcard/pictures.zip"), new File("/sdcard"));

should do the equivalent of the original

unpackZip("/sdcard/", "pictures.zip")

This is my unzip method, which I use:

private boolean unpackZip(String path, String zipname)
{       
     InputStream is;
     ZipInputStream zis;
     try 
     {
         is = new FileInputStream(path + zipname);
         zis = new ZipInputStream(new BufferedInputStream(is));          
         ZipEntry ze;

         while((ze = zis.getNextEntry()) != null) 
         {
             ByteArrayOutputStream baos = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
             byte[] buffer = new byte[1024];
             int count;

             String filename = ze.getName();
             FileOutputStream fout = new FileOutputStream(path + filename);

             // reading and writing
             while((count = zis.read(buffer)) != -1) 
             {
                 baos.write(buffer, 0, count);
                 byte[] bytes = baos.toByteArray();
                 fout.write(bytes);             
                 baos.reset();
             }

             fout.close();               
             zis.closeEntry();
         }

         zis.close();
     } 
     catch(IOException e)
     {
         e.printStackTrace();
         return false;
     }

    return true;
}

The Kotlin way

//FileExt.kt

data class ZipIO (val entry: ZipEntry, val output: File)

fun File.unzip(unzipLocationRoot: File? = null) {

    val rootFolder = unzipLocationRoot ?: File(parentFile.absolutePath + File.separator + nameWithoutExtension)
    if (!rootFolder.exists()) {
       rootFolder.mkdirs()
    }

    ZipFile(this).use { zip ->
        zip
        .entries()
        .asSequence()
        .map {
            val outputFile = File(rootFolder.absolutePath + File.separator + it.name)
            ZipIO(it, outputFile)
        }
        .map {
            it.output.parentFile?.run{
                if (!exists()) mkdirs()
            }
            it
        }
        .filter { !it.entry.isDirectory }
        .forEach { (entry, output) ->
            zip.getInputStream(entry).use { input ->
                output.outputStream().use { output ->
                    input.copyTo(output)
                }
            }
        }
    }

}

Usage

val zipFile = File("path_to_your_zip_file")
file.unzip()

Android has build-in Java API. Check out java.util.zip package.

The class ZipInputStream is what you should look into. Read ZipEntry from the ZipInputStream and dump it into filesystem/folder. Check similar example to compress into zip file.

While the answers that are already here work well, I found that they were slightly slower than I had hoped for. Instead I used zip4j, which I think is the best solution because of its speed. It also allowed for different options for the amount of compression, which I found useful.