← Blog
SecurityBy the FileBee team · 22 July 2026 · 1 min read
Zip Bombs: Why We Cap Archive Extraction
A 42-kilobyte ZIP file can expand into 4.5 petabytes. That's a zip bomb — a malicious archive designed to exhaust memory and disk, crashing whatever tries to unpack it. Here's how it works and how to stay safe.
Ready to try it?Extract an archive safely
How a zip bomb works
Compression replaces repeated data with a shortcut. A zip bomb abuses this: gigabytes of a single repeated byte compress to almost nothing, and nested archives multiply the effect (a zip inside a zip inside a zip…). Unpack it naively and you fill the disk in seconds.
How to extract archives safely
Use a tool that limits how much it will extract and refuses to go past a sane ceiling. FileBee's Extract Archive caps total extracted size and nesting depth, so a malicious archive is rejected instead of taking down your machine.
- Open Extract Archive.
- Upload your ZIP (or other archive).
- It extracts safely, or stops if the archive looks like a bomb.
Need to package files instead? Use Create Archive.
Do it now — free, no sign-up.
Extract an archive safely