7-Zip is a free and open-source file archiver utility compatible with many compression formats. By default, 7-Zip creates 7z-format archives with a .7z file extension, but when used for creating ZIP and GZIP formats, 7-Zip provides a compression ratio that is 2-10 % better than the ratio provided by PKZip and WinZip.

You can use 7-Zip on any computer, even in commercial organizations free of charge. Most of the source code is under the GNU LGPL license. The unRAR code is under a mixed license: GNU LGPL + unRAR restrictions. You don't need to register or pay for 7-Zip.

Features

  • High compression ratio in new 7z format with LZMA compression
  • Supported formats:
    • Packing / unpacking: 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2 and TAR
    • Unpacking only: RAR, CAB, ISO, ARJ, LZH, CHM, MSI, WIM, Z, CPIO, RPM, DEB and NSIS
  • For ZIP and GZIP formats, 7-Zip provides a compression ratio that is 2-10 % better than the ratio provided by PKZip and WinZip
  • Strong AES-256 encryption in 7z and ZIP formats
  • Self-extracting capability for 7z format
  • Integration with Windows Shell
  • Powerful File Manager
  • Powerful command line version
  • Plugin for FAR Manager
  • Localizations for 69 languages

7-Zip works in Windows 98/ME/NT/2000/XP/Vista/7/8/10/11. There is a port of the command line version to Linux/Unix.

What's New

Added Android version 2.3.0

  • The page "Language" in 7-Zip's menu Tools/Options now shows information about selected translation, including the number of translated lines.
  • Some bugs were fixed.
  • 7-Zip now can use new ARM64 filter for compression to 7z and xz archives. ARM64 filter can increase compression ratio for data containing executable files compiled for ARM64 (AArch64) architecture.
  • Also 7-Zip now parses executable files (that have exe and dll filename extensions) before compressing, and it selects appropriate filter for each parsed file:
    • BCJ or BCJ2 filter for x86 executable files,
    • ARM64 filter for ARM64 executable files.
  • Previous versions by default used x86 filter BCJ or BCJ2 for all exe/dll files.
  • Default section size for BCJ2 filter was changed from 64 MiB to 240 MiB. It can increase compression ratio for executable files larger than 64 MiB.
  • UDF: support was improved.
  • cpio: support for hard links.
  • Some changes and optimizations in WIM creation code.
  • When new 7-Zip creates multivolume archive, 7-Zip keeps in open state only volumes that still can be changed. Previous versions kept all volumes in open state until the end of the archive creation.
  • 7-Zip for Linux and macOS now can reduce the number of simultaneously open files, when 7-Zip opens, extracts or creates multivolume archive. It allows to avoid the failures for cases with big number of volumes, bacause there is a limitation for number of open files allowed for a single program in Linux and macOS.
  • There are optimizations in code for 7-Zip's context menu in Explorer: the speed of preparing of the menu showing was improved for cases when big number of files were selected by external program for context menu that contains 7-Zip menu commands.
  • There are changes in code for the drag-and-drop operations to and from 7-Zip File Manager.
  • And the drag-and-drop operation with right button of mouse now is supported for some cases.
  • The bugs were fixed:
    • ZIP archives: if multithreaded zip compression was performed with more than one file to stdout stream (-so switch), 7-zip didn't write "data descriptor" for some files.
    • ext4 archives: 7-Zip couldn't correctly extract symbolic link to directory from ext4 archives.
    • HFS and APFS archives: 7-Zip incorrectly decoded uncompressed blocks (64 KiB) in compressed forks.
    • Some another bugs were fixed.