7z

File Format
Name	7z
Ontology	Electronic File Formats Archiving 7z
Extension(s)	.7z
MIME Type(s)	application/x-7z-compressed
LoCFDD	fdd000539
PRONOM	fmt/484
Wikidata ID	Q270131

7z is a file format for archiving and data compression, developed by Igor Pavlov. It is the native format of the 7-Zip archiving application.

Format details

The 7z format defines many compression methods. The ones normally used are LZMA2 (default for 7-Zip 9.30 alpha ), LZMA (default for 7-Zip prior to 9.30 alpha), PPMd, and bzip2.

Identification

7z files begin with signature bytes '7' 'z' BC AF 27 1C.

Related formats

• S7z
• UFA (predecessor?)
• 777 (predecessor?)
• BIX (predecessor?)
• ARG (same author)

Specifications

• Refer to the DOC/7zFormat.txt and DOC/Methods.txt files in the source distribution.

Software

• 7-Zip
• 7zX for Mac
• p7zip
• Radyx - creates 7-zip archives using only the LZMA2 compression algorithm provided by the Fast LZMA2 Library

Sample files

• dexvert samples — archive/sevenZip

Links

• 7-Zip page about 7z Format
• Wikipedia article