Background
WPRIME package is based on UNIX tarball. However it’s beyond that – it supports encryption and storing custom meta data meant for Prime Mover plugin. This is more robust and stable than using the original zip specification. For details read our FAQ.
One thing to note if you want to extract WPRIME package. You cannot extract encrypted packages manually because it requires an encryption key. We will develop a tool for this in the future so any users can extracted encrypted package manually – but not yet today.
This short guide will only teach you to extract WPRIME package that is not encrypted – this is the default package that comes from the Prime Mover FREE version (PRO version supports encryption). Actually no data compression is applied to WPRIME package (this is done for performance reasons) – so the accurate term would be extracting – not decompressing!
Step 1 – Download the WPRIME package to your Desktop
The first step is to download the WPRIME package to your local environment (e.g. your desktop). You can simply go to Prime Mover -> Packages and then download the package from there. If you have issues downloading the packages – you can follow the tips in this tutorial.
Step 2 – Backup your package first by creating another copy
Once you have downloaded the file – back it up first. This can be done by creating duplicate copies of your WPRIME package and save it somewhere else. So just in case you have accidentally deleted your package or your extraction software deletes it – you still have the copy.
Step 3 – Rename .wprime extension to .tar extension
Since WPRIME is based on tarball – simply rename the file extension to .tar
For example if your file is named as:
mytest.wprime
It should now become:
mytest.tar
That’s it!
Step 4 – Use third party software to extract the .tar package
At this point – you should already renamed the package to .tar extension – now simply use third party software that comes with your OS to extract it. For example you can use 7-zip software that supports .tar package extraction.
Simple right? Once extracted – you should be able to see all the files contained in the package. Note that if you are unable to extract the tar package – it’s because it is corrupted during creation or transit. If this is the case – try re-creating another WPRIME package using Prime Mover plugin. If issues persist (still corrupted)- please contact us for troubleshooting.
Limitations
Extraction is only one-way (read only). This means that if you edit files inside your packages and then create another tarball and renamed again to .wprime extension – it won’t work and it will be corrupted. Extraction is only meant to check files and retrieved your files if needed. It should not be used to edit or alter WPRIME packages. In this case – you should only use Prime Mover plugin to create Prime Mover packages (right directly from your source site).