uncrx

Simple command-line tool to extract a zip file from a chrome extension file.

About

This is standalone program with zero dependencies, and its purpose is to extract CRX files (Chrome Extensions, Chrome Web Apps) from the Chrome Web Store back into ZIP files.

Users that don't want to use Google Chrome and want to use the local Developer Mode and Unpacked Extensions in order to not be tracked by Google will have to extract the Extensions somewhere, and load it manually via chrome://extensions.

This can only be done once the , so that users of an Ungoogled Chromium Browser can also use the official source of Extensions without having to build them from scratch all the time :)

Note that Google changed their "Cr24" file format already twice, and all three versions differ heavily.

Example Usage

This example demonstrates how to download and extract uBlock Origin from the Chrome Web Store, so that the ZIP file can be unpacked and the extension can be loaded as an "Unpacked Extension" in Chromium and Ungoogled Chromium.

export EXTENSION_ID="cjpalhdlnbpafiamejdnhcphjbkeiagm";
export EXTENSION_NAME="ublock-origin";

wget -O "$EXTENSION_NAME.crx" "https://clients2.google.com/service/update2/crx?response=redirect&acceptformat=crx2,crx3&prodversion=100&x=id%3D$EXTENSION_ID%26uc";

uncrx "$EXTENSION_NAME.crx":                        # creates the $EXTENSION_NAME.zip file in the same folder
unzip "$EXTENSION_NAME.zip" -d "./$EXTENSION_NAME"; # unpack the extension, so that it can be loaded in Developer Mode

File Format Support

This tool supports the following file formats:

CRX3 or "Cr24 / version 3" is currently in use by Chromium 100 or newer, and the Chrome Web Store.
CRX2 or "Cr24 / version 2" was previously used by Chromium 24 until around Chromium 100.
CRX1 was used until Chromium 23, and is a zip file without any signature headers.

Similar Tools

crx-unpack, but only supports Cr24 / version 2 encoded files.

License