Embedded Archive Workflow

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Embedded Archive Workflow

CherryTree allows an embedded archive (ZIP/7z/etc.) to behave like a virtual folder, created on‑the‑fly in the system TEMP directory.
Thanks to the excellent design of this beautiful piece of software, the so‑called CherryTree, which naturally provokes emergent behavior and enables advanced workflows that arise from its smart handling in various sectors, the embedded object becomes a real physical folder in TEMP, letting you freely test operations on its files and subfolders exactly as if you were working in a normal directory on disk.

It also behaves like a versioned folder structure: by duplicating the embedded archive before working on it, each copy becomes a separate version of the entire folder state.

This workflow emerges naturally from CherryTree’s handling of embedded objects, where each archive is extracted, edited, and written back into the document.

⚠️ BEWARE (Single‑File Mode): Size & Data‑Loss Risk

In single‑file save mode, the entire CherryTree document — including all embedded archives — is stored as one monolithic file.
Large embedded objects increase save times, memory usage, and the duration of the critical window during which data is vulnerable.
Also in single‑file save mode, CherryTree must remain open for the auto‑update to occur; in multi‑file mode, the archive application stays open independently, so there is no risk of losing work.
If CherryTree closes first while the external archive window is still open, all edits inside the TEMP folder are lost.
This risk does not exist in multi‑file mode, where the archive handler remains active independently of CherryTree