How to unzip a file in Powershell?

In PowerShell v5+, there is an Expand-Archive command (as well as Compress-Archive) built in:

Expand-Archive c:\a.zip -DestinationPath c:\a

Here is a simple way using ExtractToDirectory from System.IO.Compression.ZipFile:

Add-Type -AssemblyName System.IO.Compression.FileSystem
function Unzip
{
    param([string]$zipfile, [string]$outpath)

    [System.IO.Compression.ZipFile]::ExtractToDirectory($zipfile, $outpath)
}

Unzip "C:\a.zip" "C:\a"

Note that if the target folder doesn't exist, ExtractToDirectory will create it. Other caveats:

Existing files will not be overwritten and instead trigger an IOException.

This method requires at least .NET Framework 4.5, available for Windows Vista and newer.

Relative paths are not resolved based on the current working directory, see Why don't .NET objects in PowerShell use the current directory?

See also:

How to Compress and Extract files (Microsoft Docs)

In PowerShell v5.1 this is slightly different compared to v5. According to MS documentation, it has to have a -Path parameter to specify the archive file path.

Expand-Archive -Path Draft.Zip -DestinationPath C:\Reference

Or else, this can be an actual path:

Expand-Archive -Path c:\Download\Draft.Zip -DestinationPath C:\Reference

Expand-Archive Doc

Use Expand-Archive cmdlet with one of parameter set:

Expand-Archive -LiteralPath C:\source\file.Zip -DestinationPath C:\destination

Expand-Archive -Path file.Zip -DestinationPath C:\destination

Hey Its working for me..

$shell = New-Object -ComObject shell.application
$zip = $shell.NameSpace("put ur zip file path here")
foreach ($item in $zip.items()) {
  $shell.Namespace("destination where files need to unzip").CopyHere($item)
}

Use the built in powershell method Expand-Archive

Example

Expand-Archive -LiteralPath C:\archive.zip -DestinationPath C:\

Using expand-archive but auto-creating directories named after the archive:

function unzip ($file) {
    $dirname = (Get-Item $file).Basename
    New-Item -Force -ItemType directory -Path $dirname
    expand-archive $file -OutputPath $dirname -ShowProgress
}

For those, who want to use Shell.Application.Namespace.Folder.CopyHere() and want to hide progress bars while copying, or use more options, the documentation is here:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/desktop/shell/folder-copyhere

To use powershell and hide progress bars and disable confirmations you can use code like this:

# We should create folder before using it for shell operations as it is required
New-Item -ItemType directory -Path "C:\destinationDir" -Force

$shell = New-Object -ComObject Shell.Application
$zip = $shell.Namespace("C:\archive.zip")
$items = $zip.items()
$shell.Namespace("C:\destinationDir").CopyHere($items, 1556)

Limitations of use of Shell.Application on windows core versions:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administration/server-core/what-is-server-core

On windows core versions, by default the Microsoft-Windows-Server-Shell-Package is not installed, so shell.applicaton will not work.

note: Extracting archives this way will take a long time and can slow down windows gui

function unzip {
    param (
        [string]$archiveFilePath,
        [string]$destinationPath
    )

    if ($archiveFilePath -notlike '?:\*') {
        $archiveFilePath = [System.IO.Path]::Combine($PWD, $archiveFilePath)
    }

    if ($destinationPath -notlike '?:\*') {
        $destinationPath = [System.IO.Path]::Combine($PWD, $destinationPath)
    }

    Add-Type -AssemblyName System.IO.Compression
    Add-Type -AssemblyName System.IO.Compression.FileSystem

    $archiveFile = [System.IO.File]::Open($archiveFilePath, [System.IO.FileMode]::Open)
    $archive = [System.IO.Compression.ZipArchive]::new($archiveFile)

    if (Test-Path $destinationPath) {
        foreach ($item in $archive.Entries) {
            $destinationItemPath = [System.IO.Path]::Combine($destinationPath, $item.FullName)

            if ($destinationItemPath -like '*/') {
                New-Item $destinationItemPath -Force -ItemType Directory > $null
            } else {
                New-Item $destinationItemPath -Force -ItemType File > $null

                [System.IO.Compression.ZipFileExtensions]::ExtractToFile($item, $destinationItemPath, $true)
            }
        }
    } else {
        [System.IO.Compression.ZipFileExtensions]::ExtractToDirectory($archive, $destinationPath)
    }
}

Using:

unzip 'Applications\Site.zip' 'C:\inetpub\wwwroot\Site'

ForEach Loop processes each ZIP file located within the $filepath variable

    foreach($file in $filepath)
    {
        $zip = $shell.NameSpace($file.FullName)
        foreach($item in $zip.items())
        {
            $shell.Namespace($file.DirectoryName).copyhere($item)
        }
        Remove-Item $file.FullName
    }