KArchiver

Android file manager built around archives: browse storage, open archives without extracting, edit ZIP/TAR/7Z in place, and search inside files and archives. The UI is Jetpack Compose (Material 3 Expressive); all archive work is done by a Rust core over JNI. Android 8.0+ (API 26), arm64-v8a / x86_64, no internet permission.

Features

• Storage browser: volumes (internal / SD / USB), list and grid, sorting, hidden files, multi-select (hold an item and swipe across it to select a range), copy / cut / paste, favorites, storage usage carousel.
• Real thumbnails for images (JPG, PNG, WebP, GIF, SVG and more) and a frame from videos, with a placeholder icon for anything broken or unsupported.
• Customizable navigation drawer: drag a tab from its right edge to reorder it, hold a tab to remove it, hold any empty spot in the drawer to add a tab back. Pinned favorites can be reordered the same way.
• Recents: the newest files and folders from every storage volume in one list.
• Archive explorer: browse ZIP, 7Z, TAR family and RAR without extracting; in-place add, rename and delete for ZIP, TAR family and 7Z.
• Copy and extract with conflict handling: replace, skip, or keep both (name (1).ext).
• Extract dialog with a destination chooser: into the current folder, into a new folder named after the archive, or into any folder you pick, plus an option to delete the archive afterwards.
• Opening an archive from another app jumps to its folder and shows an action sheet (Preview, Extract, Verify, Open with, Share, Properties, Copy path).
• Long operations run in a foreground service with progress, speed, ETA, cancel and a stall watchdog.
• Search by name, extension, date, size and type, plus content: for file or entry contents and archive: for entry names inside archives.
• File properties: permissions, rename, and modified date with a Material 3 date picker.
• Optional Trash: deleted files are moved aside instead of erased, with restore, delete forever and empty Trash from the drawer.
• Optional Shizuku or root engine for restricted paths, SAF fallback when All files access is denied.
• Optional system browsing (off by default): a .. parent entry at the top of the list lets you climb above internal storage into /, /data, /data/data, /vendor, /system and other users' storage. Root is required for /data and app data.
• Optional auto-refresh (off by default): watches the open folder and loads new, changed or deleted files automatically, without pull-to-refresh. Works in folders the app can read directly.
• Optional quoted copy path (off by default): copied paths are wrapped in single quotes for shell scripts and Termux.
• Optional equal grid cells (off by default): every grid cell gets the same size and long names scroll instead of being cut off.
• Optional history of visited folders and files in a local Room database.
• Diagnostics: Settings → About → Save logs writes the app's warnings and errors plus the Rust log into one file under Downloads/KArchiver.

Formats

Build

Needs JDK 17, Android SDK with compileSdk 37 and build-tools 37.0.0, NDK 28.2.13676358, Rust 1.98.1 (rust/rust-toolchain.toml) and cargo-ndk.

cargo install cargo-ndk
rustup target add aarch64-linux-android x86_64-linux-android

cd rust
cargo ndk -t arm64-v8a -t x86_64 --platform 26 -o ../app/src/main/jniLibs build --lib
cd ..
./gradlew :app:assembleDebug

APK: app/build/outputs/apk/debug/app-debug.apk. Tests:

./gradlew :app:testDebugUnitTest
cd rust && cargo fmt --check && cargo clippy --all-targets -- -D warnings && cargo test

CI, releases and signing

.github/workflows/build.yml builds on pushes to main, on pull requests, and on demand. Debug APKs are signed with a throwaway keystore generated for every run; release APKs are built only on pushes and signed with the keystore kept in repository secrets. Signing material is read from KARCHIVER_* environment variables, so nothing secret is committed, and pull requests never touch it. The run summary lists the size and SHA-256 of each artifact.

APKs are available in two places: as workflow artifacts under Actions, and attached to tagged versions on the Releases page. Release entries list the file names, sizes and SHA-256 values.

License

Application (app/): GPL-3.0-only, see LICENSE. Rust core (rust/): Apache-2.0, see rust/LICENSE.

Questions and answers: QA.md.

Processes tab and parallel archive operations

• Up to three archive operations run at the same time (extract / compress); further requests queue in order and start automatically when a slot frees. Per-task progress, speed and ETA, a stall watchdog, and one aggregated foreground notification with per-task completion alerts.
• New hidden Processes tab in the navigation drawer: hold any empty spot in the drawer and pick Add Processes. It lists running, queued and finished tasks with live progress — cancel a single task, cancel everything, or clear finished ones — while you keep browsing files or start more work.
• Archive-explorer compression and multi-entry extracts feed the same task registry, so operations keep running across navigation.

Fixes and improvements

• 7z editing works: add, rename, delete and entry metadata changes, including password-protected archives — the docs no longer promise what the code rejected.
• TAR editing streams instead of buffering the whole archive (no 256 MB cap, no OOM on big archives); added files keep their real modification time; hard links no longer abort extraction on Android storage (falls back to a copy).
• ZIP edits are much faster: untouched entries keep their compressed bytes instead of being decompressed and recompressed; AES-256 entries stay byte-identical across edits (fixes re-encryption with a fresh salt on every edit); true PKZIP multi-disk splits now fail with a clear message instead of a parser error.
• Passwords cross JNI as wiped byte arrays with a drop guard that wipes on every path, including panics; extractFiltered now returns its status code consistently on both sides of the bridge.
• Deep search marks visited directories by canonical path, so symlink cycles can no longer loop forever.
• Root shell no longer deadlocks when a command prints output without a trailing newline (marker and handshake are emitted on a fresh line and matched robustly).
• Shizuku write file descriptors can create and truncate files.
• Open with falls back to staging in the app cache when FileProvider cannot map a path (previously a silent no-op).
• Trash directory moves stage into a .part folder and rename, so a killed process cannot leave a half-copied directory looking complete.
• QA now lists TAR.LZ4 among the editable formats.

app-release.apk — arm64-v8a + x86_64, minSdk 26, signed with the release key (updates over 1.2-beta, versionCode 3).

• size: 29639716 bytes
• sha256: b2bb97f304e4e12ec8fb20f9c00e2e4506222c5c04fbadefb67396823d8184c7