You can easily search through files inside ZIP files and other archives with PowerGREP. All you need to do is to set “archive formats to search inside” on the File Selector panel to a configuration that enables the archive formats you want to search inside. PowerGREP comes with a number of predefined configurations that enable none, some, or all of the archive formats supported by PowerGREP. You can edit these configurations or create your own to tailor them to your needs. It’s best to enable only those archive formats that you really want to search inside, so PowerGREP doesn’t waste its time decompressing other archives.
Select “ZIP archives only” to search through files inside ZIP archives and skip all other archives formats. Select “all archives” to search inside all archive formats supported by PowerGREP, but not through mailboxes or disk images.
Selecting an archive format configuration does not affect files that are not inside archives. Those files are still searched through if you mark the folder that contains them.
When an archive format is enabled, PowerGREP treats files that match that archive format’s file mask as (compressed) folders. If you want to search through all files in an archive, including files in subfolders inside the archive, make sure to use the command Include Folder and Subfolders in the File Selector menu to mark that archive or one of its parent folders.
If you want to search only through files inside ZIP archives, set “include folders” on the File Selector panel add the file mask *.zip. You cannot use “include files” for this. That is for the files inside the archives. To search only through TXT files inside ZIP archives, set “include files” to *.txt and “include folders” to *.zip.
This file selection is available in the PowerGREP5.pgl library as “Archives: Search only through files inside ZIP archives”.