archive Command

April 9, 2026 · View on GitHub

The archive command provides utilities for working with Unity Archives — container files used for AssetBundles and web platform .data files. Archives hold one or more files (typically SerializedFiles) and may apply compression to the content.

To inspect the serialized objects inside an archive, use the dump command, which can open archives directly without extracting first.

Sub-Commands

Sub-Command	Description	Unity Archive	Web `.data`
`info`	Display a high-level summary	Yes	—
`header`	Display archive header information	Yes	—
`blocks`	Display the data block list	Yes	—
`list`	List contents of an archive	Yes	Yes
`extract`	Extract contents of an archive	Yes	Yes

info

Displays a high-level summary of a Unity Archive file, including compression ratio, file counts, and data sizes.

Quick Reference

UnityDataTool archive info <archive-path> [options]

Option	Description	Default
`<archive-path>`	Path to the archive file	(required)
`-f, --format <Text\|Json>`	Output format	`Text`

Example

UnityDataTool archive info scenes.bundle
UnityDataTool archive info scenes.bundle -f Json

Displays the header information of a Unity Archive file, including format version, Unity version, file size, metadata compression, and archive flags.

Very old versions of the Unity Archive format are not supported. But the files created by all currently supported Unity versions should be compatible (and it was tested with files as old as Unity 2017).

Quick Reference

UnityDataTool archive header <archive-path> [options]

Option	Description	Default
`<archive-path>`	Path to the archive file	(required)
`-f, --format <Text\|Json>`	Output format	`Text`

Example

UnityDataTool archive header scenes.bundle
UnityDataTool archive header scenes.bundle -f Json

blocks

Displays the data block list of a Unity Archive file, showing the size, compression type, and file offset of each block.

Very old versions of the Unity Archive format are not supported.

Quick Reference

UnityDataTool archive blocks <archive-path> [options]

Option	Description	Default
`<archive-path>`	Path to the archive file	(required)
`-f, --format <Text\|Json>`	Output format	`Text`

Example

UnityDataTool archive blocks scenes.bundle
UnityDataTool archive blocks scenes.bundle -f Json

list

Lists the contents of an archive, including the offset, size, and flags of each file.

Very old versions of the Unity Archive format are not supported.

Quick Reference

UnityDataTool archive list <archive-path> [options]

Option	Description	Default
`<archive-path>`	Path to the archive file	(required)
`-f, --format <Text\|Json>`	Output format	`Text`

Example

UnityDataTool archive list scenes.bundle
UnityDataTool archive list scenes.bundle -f Json

extract

Extracts the contents of an archive to disk. This is similar to Unity's WebExtract tool.

Quick Reference

UnityDataTool archive extract <archive-path> [options]

Option	Description	Default
`<archive-path>`	Path to the archive file	(required)
`-o, --output-path <path>`	Output directory	`archive`
`--filter <text>`	Case-insensitive substring filter on file paths inside the archive	(none — extract all)

Example

UnityDataTool archive extract scenes.bundle -o contents
UnityDataTool archive extract scenes.bundle --filter sharedAssets

Output files:

contents/BuildPlayer-SampleScene.sharedAssets
contents/BuildPlayer-SampleScene
contents/BuildPlayer-Scene2.sharedAssets
contents/BuildPlayer-Scene2

Note: The extracted files are in binary formats, not text. If they are SerializedFiles then use the dump command to convert them to readable text format. See also the serialized-file command.

The archive command works at the container level — it shows the archive structure and can extract the raw files. To inspect the serialized objects inside those files, use the dump command, which can open an archive directly and dump all SerializedFiles inside it without extracting first.

Command	Output	Use Case
`archive extract`	Raw binary files (SerializedFiles, .resS, .resource, etc.)	When you need the individual files on disk
`dump`	Human-readable text representation of serialized objects	When you want to inspect object properties and values inside an archive