Akeeba Extract

Extracts Akeeba Backup archives on your desktop.

Important

This repository is still in a Technology Preview stage. Use at your own risk.

This application supports JPA, encrypted JPS, and standard ZIP. It is cross-platform; it runs on macOS, Windows, and Linux.

The interface is deliberately minimal: pick the archive, choose an output folder (defaults to the archive's own folder), enter a password if the archive is an encrypted JPS, press Start, and watch the progress bar. When extraction completes you can open the output folder directly from the app.

The extraction engine is the battle-tested unarchiver fromAkeeba Kickstart, reused here behind a native desktop GUI built with Boson (a PHP runtime paired with the operating system's native WebView).

Features

• Extracts JPA, JPS (AES-encrypted, password-protected), and ZIP archives.
• Handles multi-part archives automatically (.jpa + .j01, .j02, …).
• Selective extraction: extract only the files you need by entering glob patterns, or use the built-in archive browser to pick files and folders from a tree and have the patterns filled in for you.
• Skip most errors: optionally keep going past files that cannot be written (e.g. a backup made on Linux containing names such as foo?bar that are invalid on Windows) or corrupt entries, instead of aborting the whole run. Each skipped entry is listed under Warnings.
• Native file/folder pickers and a live progress bar.
• Open Output Folder button on completion for quick access to extracted files.
• Clean error messages for common failure cases: corrupt archive, wrong password, unwritable destination, missing multi-part file, user cancel.
• Engine warnings surfaced non-intrusively in a collapsible area.
• Single self-contained binary per platform — no PHP installation required by end users.

Usage

1. Launch Akeeba Extract. You can pick the archive in any of three ways:
   • Click Browse… next to Archive file and choose your .jpa, .jps, or .zip file.
   • Drag and drop an archive onto the window (does not work on macOS).
   • Open the app with the archive as an argument — e.g. via a Windows/Linux file association or akeeba-extract /path/to/backup.jpa from a terminal.
2. The Output folder defaults to the archive's directory; click Browse… to change it.
3. For an encrypted JPS archive, type the password in the Password field that appears.
4. (Optional) To extract only some of the archive, use the Files to extract box. Type one glob pattern per line (e.g. images/* or config/settings.php), or click Pick a file or directory… to browse the archive contents in a tree, tick the files/folders you want, and press Insert. Picking a folder inserts a folder/* pattern; picking a file inserts its path verbatim. Leave the box empty to extract everything.
5. (Optional) Tick Skip most errors to keep extracting when an individual file cannot be written (for example a Linux-only name such as foo?bar on Windows) or an entry is corrupt, instead of aborting. Skipped entries are reported in the collapsible Warnings area when the run finishes.
6. Click Start. All inputs are locked during extraction; click Cancel to abort.
7. On success, click Open Output Folder to open the destination in your file manager.

Tip

Always select the main archive file (.jpa / .jps / .zip). Multi-part pieces (.j01, .j02, … / .z01, …) are discovered and read automatically.

Open file behaviour per platform

• Browse… (file picker): works on macOS, Windows, and Linux. On macOS you will be able to select files which are not backup archives due to an OS limitation.
• Drag-and-drop: works on Windows and Linux. Not available on macOS — its system WebView (WKWebView) hands the page only the dropped file's contents, never its path, so the app can't locate the archive. The window shows a clear message pointing you to Browse… if you drop a file there.
• Launch with a file argument (file association or akeeba-extract /path/to/archive.jpa): works on Windows and Linux, and from a macOS terminal. macOS Finder file associations aren't wired up (they use Apple Events rather than argv).

Selective extraction

By default the entire archive is extracted. To extract only part of it, list one or more glob patterns in the Files to extract box — one per line (commas also work). Leave the box empty to extract everything.

Patterns are matched against each entry's archive-relative path (e.g. config/settings.php), and matching is case-sensitive:

Pattern	Matches
config/settings.php	exactly that one file
images/*	everything under images/, at any depth (e.g. images/a.png and images/icons/b.png)
*.sql	every entry whose path ends in .sql, in any folder
config/db.php, config/settings.php	either file (comma- or newline-separated)

Note

Unlike a shell, * here also matches the / separator, so a single folder/* pattern covers the whole sub-tree beneath folder/. ? matches any single character.

Pick a file or directory… opens a browser of the archive's contents as a checkable tree. Tick any files and folders and press Insert to append the matching patterns to the box: a folder becomes folder/*, a file becomes its path verbatim. Ticking a folder selects everything inside it.

The first time you open the picker, the app performs a quick dry run over the whole archive — it reads (and, for JPS, decrypts with the password you entered) every part to enumerate the entries, without writing anything to disk. Progress is shown on the main window's bar and can be cancelled. The resulting list is cached, so reopening the picker is instant; it is rescanned automatically if you change the archive or the password.

Skip most errors

By default, the extraction stops at the first problem it cannot recover from — typically a file that cannot be written to disk, or a corrupt entry in the archive. Tick Skip most errors before pressing Start to make the engine continue past such problems instead:

• A file that cannot be written (for example a name like foo?bar#baz that is perfectly valid on Linux but illegal on Windows, or a target the operating system refuses) is left out and extraction moves on to the next entry. This applies to JPA, JPS, and ZIP archives.
• For JPA and JPS archives, a corrupt entry header is skipped by scanning ahead for the next valid one, so a localised bit of corruption no longer dooms the whole archive.

Every skipped entry is recorded as a warning, surfaced in the collapsible Warnings area once the run finishes, so you always know exactly what was left out. This mirrors the long-standing Skip most errors option of Akeeba Kickstart.

Note

This option only changes how recoverable errors are handled. Fatal conditions — a wrong JPS password, a completely unreadable archive, or a missing multi-part file — still stop the run with a clear error message.

The headless CLI harness (bin/extract-cli.php) exposes the same behaviour through a -s / --skip-errors flag.

Building from source

Requirements (development machine):

• PHP 8.4+ with the ffi, openssl, and zlib extensions (bz2 is optional as we never allowed creating backup archives using this compression method).
• Composer.
• Boson compiler (boson-php/compiler, installed via Composer). macOS 14+ for development.

# Install dependencies (including Boson runtime and compiler)
composer install

# Run in development mode (opens the app window directly)
php index.php

One-command build & package (all platforms)

composer build

This runs build/build-all.sh, which compiles every target and packages each platform's distributable into build/output/:

Platform	Artifact
macOS arm64	Akeeba-Extract-arm64.dmg (.app bundle inside)
macOS x86_64	Akeeba-Extract-amd64.dmg
Linux x86_64	Akeeba-Extract-linux-amd64.tar.gz
Windows x86_64	Akeeba-Extract-Setup.exe (installer) — see the Windows note below
Any	phar/akeeba-extract.phar

Notes:

• The same pipeline also runs automatically after composer update (wired via the post-update-cmd Composer hook).
• The first compile downloads the Boson runtime stubs (~150 MB total) and needs network access; subsequent runs use the cache.
• .app/.dmg packaging only happens on a macOS host (it uses hdiutil).
• Windows installer: the pipeline builds Akeeba-Extract-Setup.exe frombuild/windows-installer.nsi using NSIS, whose makensis compiler runs natively on macOS and Linux — so the installer cross-compiles from your dev machine with no Wine/Docker/Windows host. Install it once withbrew install makensis (macOS) or your distro's nsis package (Linux). If makensis is absent, the pipeline falls back to Inno Setup's iscc (if present, e.g. on Windows, using build/windows-installer.iss), and failing that, a portable Akeeba-Extract-windows-amd64.zip.
• If dev dependencies are absent (e.g. composer update --no-dev), the build step detects the missing compiler and skips cleanly without failing.

The individual packaging scripts can also be run by hand:

php vendor/bin/boson compile     # compile all targets only
./build/macos-app.sh arm64       # → Akeeba Extract.app in build/output/macos/aarch64/
./build/make-dmg.sh  arm64       # → Akeeba-Extract-arm64.dmg in build/output/
./build/macos-app.sh amd64       # macOS x86_64 (Intel) variant
./build/make-dmg.sh  amd64

Compile output

Target	Directory	Files
macOS arm64	build/output/macos/aarch64/	akeeba-extract, libboson-darwin-universal.dylib, public/
macOS amd64	build/output/macos/amd64/	same
Windows amd64	build/output/windows/amd64/	akeeba-extract.exe, libboson-windows-x86_64.dll, public/
Linux amd64	build/output/linux/amd64/	akeeba-extract, libboson-linux-x86_64.so, public/
PHAR (any OS with PHP)	build/output/phar/	akeeba-extract.phar, all runtime dylibs, public/

Windows installer

The build pipeline produces a proper Windows installer, build/output/Akeeba-Extract-Setup.exe.

Preferred — NSIS (cross-compiles from any OS). The NSIS makensis compiler runs natively on macOS and Linux, so the installer is built from build/windows-installer.nsi without a Windows host. Install it once (brew install makensis on macOS, your distro's nsis package on Linux) and build/build-all.sh picks it up automatically. To run it by hand:

php vendor/bin/boson compile
makensis -V2 build/windows-installer.nsi

Fallback — Inno Setup (Windows only). If makensis is unavailable but Inno Setup's iscc is present, the pipeline falls back to build/windows-installer.iss. Build it on a Windows machine with Inno Setup 6:

php vendor/bin/boson compile
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Inno Setup 6\ISCC.exe" build\windows-installer.iss

If neither compiler is found, the pipeline produces a portable Akeeba-Extract-windows-amd64.zip instead.

Known limitations

• No code signing or notarization. macOS users will see a Gatekeeper warning on first launch; right-click → Open to bypass it. Windows users may see a SmartScreen prompt.
• Windows and Linux binaries are compiled on macOS via Boson's cross-compilation support but must be run-tested on their respective operating systems.
• BZip2 (bz2) extension not bundled. JPA archives that use BZip2 compression will fail to extract. The standard Boson SFX bundles do not include bz2. To add it, build a custom SFX by forking boson-php/backend-src and following the README's "custom extensions" workflow, then reference the custom SFX in boson.json.
• Boson is pre-1.0 (currently 0.19.x); the API may change between minor versions. Pin boson-php/compiler and boson-php/runtime versions in composer.json.
• The file picker scans the whole archive on first open. Enumerating the entries reads (and, for JPS, decrypts) every part, so for a large multi-gigabyte archive the first open of Pick a file or directory… can take a while. It runs with a cancellable progress bar and the result is cached for the session.

Cross-platform binaries (Windows .exe, Linux ELF) are compiled on macOS via Boson's cross-compilation support but must be run-tested on their respective operating systems.

License

Akeeba Extract is free software.

Copyright (c) 2026 Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos / Akeeba Ltd

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see https://www.gnu.org/licenses/.

The full license text is in LICENSE.txt.

The reused extraction engine in engine/ is also licensed under the GNU GPL v3 or later, Copyright (c) 2008–2026 Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos / Akeeba Ltd.