How to extract files from an ISO image
- Drop the
.isofile onto the drop zone above, or click Choose a file. - Leave Password (only if the archive is encrypted) empty. ISO images are not password protected.
- Click Extract files. The disc's file system is read and every file on it is listed.
- Download the files you need, or use Download all (ZIP) to copy the entire disc contents into one ZIP.
The image is read by libarchive in your browser, so nothing is uploaded and you do not need disc-mounting software or administrator rights.
What an ISO file contains
An ISO is a sector-by-sector copy of an optical disc, named after the ISO 9660 standard that defines the CD-ROM file system. Unlike ZIP or 7Z, an ISO is not compressed: it is the disc's complete directory structure stored as one large file, which is why images of DVDs are several gigabytes.
Plain ISO 9660 is very restrictive about file names, so most discs add extensions on top of it:
- Joliet, introduced by Microsoft, stores Unicode file names up to 64 characters, so Windows shows the original names.
- Rock Ridge adds POSIX information such as long names, permissions and symbolic links for Unix-like systems.
- UDF is a newer disc file system used on many DVDs and Blu-ray discs, sometimes alongside ISO 9660.
This tool reads ISO 9660 images including their Joliet and Rock Ridge names. Discs written only in UDF may not be readable.
Mounting instead of extracting
If you only need to browse the disc or run an installer, your operating system can mount the image as a virtual drive. On Windows 10 and 11, double-click the ISO or right-click it and choose Mount. On macOS, double-clicking the file mounts it in Finder. On Linux, sudo mount -o loop image.iso /mnt mounts it at /mnt, and most desktop file managers offer the same with a click. Extracting is the better choice when the ISO is on a computer where you cannot mount drives, or when you want to keep a handful of files and delete the image.
ISO images bigger than 2 GB cannot be processed in the browser because everything is held in memory, and anything above roughly 700 MB will be slow. For a full DVD image, mounting it is usually quicker.
Tips
- To see the file list with sizes before extracting, open the image in ZIP Viewer, which reads ISO too, and download only what you need.
- Need the disc contents as a compressed archive? ISO to ZIP repacks them, usually much smaller than the image.
- To build your own image from files and folders, use Create ISO.
Frequently asked questions
Can I install software from the extracted files?
Often yes, if the installer runs from a folder. Bootable operating system images are a different matter: copying their files does not make a bootable USB stick, and you need a dedicated tool for that.
Why are some names shortened?
If a disc was written with plain ISO 9660 only, without Joliet or Rock Ridge, it stores short upper-case names, and those are what you get.
Does extracting change the ISO?
No. The image is only read. Your original file is untouched.