7Z Archive file format

7z is a compressed archive file format that supports several different data compression, encryption and pre-processing filters. The 7z format initially appeared as implemented by the 7-Zip archiver. The 7-Zip program is publicly available under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License.

The 7z format provides the following main features:

•    Open, modular architecture which allows any compression, conversion, or encryption method to be stacked.

•    High compression ratios (depending on the compression method used)

•    Strong Rijndael/AES-256 encryption.

•    Large file support (up to approximately 16 exabytes).

•    Unicode file names

•    Support for solid compression, where multiple files of like type are compressed within a single stream, in order to exploit the combined redundancy inherent in similar files.

•    Compression of archive headers.

WinTar version 3.0 can read and write 7Z format archives that compressed by LZMA compressiong method only. Other features of 7Z format will be supported by WinTar future versions.

Related file formats

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•  archive file formats

•  CAB archive format

•  Zip archive format

•  Tar archive format

•  Pax archive format

•  Mtree archive format

•  LZMA Compression