Virus Chest

Access this feature from: Protection ▸ 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 to the Virus Chest in the following ways:

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

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

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 move a file to Virus Chest, click Add File..., then select the file and click Open.

After adding a file, tick the box next to the file. Click the Delete button to permanently remove the file from the Virus Chest, or click the downward facing arrow next to the button to access the following options:

Restore: moves the file from Virus Chest to its original location.
Send for analysis: sends files to the Avast Threat Labs for further analysis.

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).
Click the downward facing arrow next to Delete and select Send for analysis.
Provide the requested information about the file, then click Send.

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 ☰ Menu ▸ Settings ▸ General ▸ Maintenance ▸ Virus Chest.

In your Virus Chest settings, you can specify:

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.