22
submitted 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) by happeningtofry99158@lemmy.world to c/opensource@lemmy.ml

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/32606497

why is unzipping on android so slow compared to Windows? I've tried ZipXtract, MaterialFile... All took 10+minutes to unizip a zip file that only took 30 seconds to unzip on Windows.

Why is this the case and i s there any way to speed it up?

Thanks a lot

EDIT:

I am using google pixel 9a so this issue looks like it might not be the issue of storage speed

Windows is not running in a virtual machine, just a normal laptop

Typo in the post fixed

EDIT AGAIN:

Solved!

yes it the archive does contains thousands of small files! I think that could be the reason of low performance on android mobile!

thanks a lot @Brett@feddit.org

top 14 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] lilith267 14 points 4 days ago

If your using a budget phone, storage tends to be slow

Even on some higher budget phones using slower storage is a regular cost cutting move

[-] happeningtofry99158@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago

Sry, I should state my device model in the post

I am using google pixel 9a so this issue looks like it might not be the issue of storage speed?

[-] lilith267 2 points 4 days ago

The "a" series is googles budget phones, they also use budget storage (ufs 3.1), its by no means super slow but definitely could be a contributing factor if your archive is very big with lots of random writes and reads

[-] uninvitedguest@lemmy.ca 7 points 4 days ago

Sigh.

unziiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiipppppppsssss

[-] happeningtofry99158@lemmy.world 5 points 4 days ago

EDIT AGAIN:

Solved!

yes it the archive does contains thousands of small files! I think that could be the reason of low performance on android mobile!

thanks a lot @Brett@feddit.org

[-] INeedMana@piefed.zip 4 points 4 days ago

I've been using ZArchiver and Ghost Commander and haven't noticed a big difference vs Linux. It might depend on device's hardware too

[-] SuperSpruce@lemmy.zip 2 points 2 days ago

I also use ZArchiver and unzipping is zippy (sorry) in my experience. Not quite as fast as Linux but that's to be expected considering the hardware difference.

However Windows is quite slow in this regard in my experience. It can easily take 30 seconds to extract a zip file that Linux can do in under a second, often with a sub 1MBps throughput. This is on an NVMe SSD.

[-] happeningtofry99158@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Sry, I should state my device model in the post

I am using google pixel 9a so this issue looks like it might not be the issue of storage speed?

Also sorry about the typo in the post, I'm using ZipXtract and matrial files for decompressing

[-] irotsoma 3 points 4 days ago

Bottleneck is usually storage speed rather than processing power. If you have a device that can use external sd cards and your device supports high-speed cards, that might help, though if the controller for sd cards is slow, that might just end up a worse bottleneck. But that's just a guess and it definitely could be that your memory is not sufficient or background apps are eating up processing, such as crypto-mining malware just as an example. You can check resources over adb while unzipping or try some benchmarks to determine your issue.

Anecdotally, I have no issues on my Pixel 7 Pro and never had issues on past Pixel or Nexus phones I've owned (generally higher end models with plenty of memory and storage space). Pixel devices don't include sd card slots so this is all on internal storage in those cases.

Sure anything is likely to take longer on a phone than on a laptop or desktop, but shouldnt be that significant of a difference unless there's a hardware bottleneck or other apps are using all the resources.

[-] happeningtofry99158@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago

Sry, I should state my device model in the post

I am using google pixel 9a so this issue looks like it might not be the issue of storage speed?

[-] irotsoma 2 points 4 days ago

Pixel 9a has some issues with performance, currently. They used older storage tech for the 9 and 9a than other devices and not enough memory for all the "AI" features that are tracking everything you do to make things more convenient. There are a few articles out there related to some ways to improve performance a bit by disabling some background apps that you may not be using. It's also possible future updates from google may fix some of whatever is causing the issues for many users.

But it's not an endemic Android issue, at least not modern versions in my experience. I use GrapheneOS on a Pixel 7 Pro currently and just grabbed a couple of 10+ GB zip files I had on an old dropbox account and unzipped them with the fossify file manager. It was basically instant. Took longer to download them than unzip.

As I mentioned, your best bet is to use ADB or similar and monitor what applications are eating up resources and try to free some up. Especially any apps thrashing the storage or filling memory. That's assuming you have already uninstalled any bloatware and rebooted recently to make sure no bad apps are stuck.

[-] happeningtofry99158@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago

I believe I have found the issue. The archive does contains thousands of small files and that could be the reason

[-] irotsoma 1 points 2 days ago

Yeah that can make a difference in some cases. Are they media files? Android tends to do more scanning of those as each is created. You can also set a .nomedia file in the directory that you're unzipping to on order to reduce sone of that, though not sure if the new AI stuff obeys those like Android itself does.

[-] LiveLM@lemmy.zip 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Although I cannot state this is the issue with certainty, I put one vote on Android's Storage Access Framework being absolute ass.

this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2025
22 points (100.0% liked)

Open Source

38814 readers
82 users here now

All about open source! Feel free to ask questions, and share news, and interesting stuff!

Useful Links

Rules

Related Communities

Community icon from opensource.org, but we are not affiliated with them.

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS