.7Z File Extension

A 7Z file is a compressed archive created by various file compression utilities, most notably, Igor Pavlov's 7-Zip. It uses open-source LZMA compression, which has a high compression ratio and can include strong AES-256 (256-bit) encryption. 7Z files may contain multiple directories or files compressed to save space for storage or transportation purposes.

While 7z compression uses the LZMA method by default, the 7z format also supports the PPMD, BCJ, BCJ2, BZip2, and Deflate compression methods. The file type also supports Unicode file names, archive header compression, and file sizes up to 16,000,000,000 GB.

You can extract the files contained within a 7Z archive using a variety of decompression utilities, including:

• 7-Zip (Windows)
• Corel WinZip (Windows)
• Corel WinZip Mac (Mac)
• B1 Free Archiver (cross-platform)

If your 7Z archive is split into a multi-volume archive (e.g. you possess a .7z file, a .7Z.001 file, a .7Z.002 file, and so on), you can extract all the files included within the multi-volume archive by opening the archive's primary 7Z file in a decompression utility. Note that, for this to work, all the files contained within the multi-volume archive must be stored in the same folder. Also, you must possess every file included in the archive (e.g. if you have a .7z.003 file and a .7z.005 file, but not a .7z.004 file, you may have trouble extracting your files).

Some 7Z archives may be password-protected. To open these archives, you must enter the password used to create the archive when prompted.