Virus Chest

Access this feature from: Protection ▸ Antivirus ▸ Virus Chest

The Virus Chest is an isolated space where you can safely store potentially dangerous files or send them to the Avast Threat Labs for analysis. Files in the Virus Chest cannot run or access your system and data, so any malicious code contained within a file is unable to harm your PC.

By default, files are moved into the Virus Chest in the following ways:

If you run a predefined Antivirus scan and it detects a suspicious file.
If an active Shield detects a suspicious file.

In both of the above cases, Avast runs a series of actions which may result in the file being moved to the Virus Chest. Alternatively, you can move files into the Virus Chest manually.

Note: You can also access the Virus Chest by right-clicking the Avast icon in your system tray and selecting Virus Chest.

Add or manage Virus Chest files

To manually add a file to the Virus Chest, right-click anywhere in the table, select Add, then locate and select the suspicious file. Files manually added to the Virus Chest are copies only. The original files are not automatically deleted and you should manually remove them if they are risky.

Right-click a file in the list to access the following options:

Delete: permanently remove the file from the Virus Chest.
Restore: copy the file to its original location.
Restore and add to exclusions: copy the file to its original location, and exclude it from future scans.
Extract: select a location then copy the file to that location.
Scan: rescan the file based on current virus definitions.
Submit to virus lab: send files to the Avast Threat Labs for further analysis.
Properties: view more information about the file and optionally provide a comment.
Refresh all files: check for updates to the list of files.

Submit files to the Avast Threat Labs

We recommend you send the following file types to the Avast Threat Labs:

Potential malware: files that Avast has not flagged as malware, but you believe may be malicious.
False positive: files that Avast has identified as malware, but you believe may be clean.

To submit a file to the Avast Threat Labs, follow these steps:

Ensure that the file has been added to the Virus Chest (either manually or by Avast).
Update the virus definitions and rescan the file in the Virus Chest.
Right-click the file in the Virus Chest, and select Submit to virus lab.
Provide the requested information about the file, then click Submit.

The file is submitted to the Avast Threat Labs for further testing. In most cases, the Avast Threat Labs processes the files they receive without sending a response to you.

Manage Virus Chest settings

To manage the settings of the Virus Chest, go to Settings ▸ General ▸ Maintenance ▸ Virus Chest.

In your Virus Chest settings, you can set:

Maximum size of chest: files that exceed this limit (256 MB by default) or the remaining space cannot be added to the Virus Chest.
Maximum size of file to be sent: files that exceed this limit (16384 KB by default) cannot be submitted to the Avast Threat Labs.