List of archive formats
Archiving and compression

List of archive formats

Section Title: Archiving and compression
Table Section Text: None

File extension(s)	MIME type	Official name	Creation platform	Restoration platform	Restorable with free software	Description

.7z	application/x-7z-compressed	7z	Multiple	Multiple	Yes	Open source file format. Used by 7-Zip.

.s7z	application/x-7z-compressed	7zX	macOS	macOS, restoration on different platforms is possible although not immediate	Yes	Based on 7z. Preserves Spotlight metadata, resource forks, owner/group information, dates and other data which would be otherwise lost with compression.

.ace	application/x-ace-compressed	ACE	Windows	Multiple	Yes	Proprietary format

.afa	application/x-astrotite-afa	AFA	UNIX-like	UNIX-like	No	A format that compresses and doubly encrypt the data (AES256 and CAS256) avoiding brute force attacks, also hide files in an AFA file.

.alz	application/x-alz-compressed	ALZip	Windows	Multiple	Yes	A mainly Korean format designed for very large archives.

.apk	application/vnd.android.package-archive	APK	Multiple	Multiple	Yes	Android application package (variant of JAR file format).

.arc	ARC	Multiple	Multiple	Yes	Very popular in the early days of BBSes, one of the first to offer compression and archiving in a single program.

.arj	application/x-arj	ARJ	Originally DOS, now multiple	Multiple	Yes	Competitor to PKZIP in the 1990s, offered better multi-part archive handling.

.b1	application/x-b1	B1	Multiple	Multiple	Yes	Open archive format, used by B1 Free Archiver (http://dev.b1.org/standard/archive-format.html)

.b6z	B6Z	macOS	Multiple	Yes	Compressed archive format B6Zip

.ba	Scifer	Multiple	Multiple	Yes	Binary Archive with external header

.bh	BlakHole	Yes	Proprietary format from the ZipTV Compression Components

.cab	application/vnd.ms-cab-compressed	Cabinet	Windows	Multiple	Yes	The Microsoft Windows native archive format, which is also used by many commercial installers such as InstallShield and WISE.

.car	Compressia archive	Originally DOS, now DOS and Windows	Originally DOS, now DOS and Windows	Yes	Created by Yaakov Gringeler; released last in 2003 (Compressia 1.0.0.1 beta), now apparently defunct. Free trial of 30 days lets user create and extract archives; after that it is possible to extract, but not to create.

.cfs	application/x-cfs-compressed	Compact File Set	Windows, Unix-like including macOS	Multiple	Yes	Open source file format.

.cpt	Compact Pro	Classic Mac OS	Multiple	Yes	Compact Pro archive, a common archiver used on Mac platforms until about Mac OS 7.5.x. Competed with StuffIt; now obsolete.

.dar	application/x-dar	Disk Archiver	Windows, Unix-like including macOS	Windows, Unix-like including macOS	Yes	Open source file format. Files are compressed individually with either gzip, bzip2 or lzo.

.dd	DiskDoubler	Classic Mac OS	obsolete

.dgc	application/x-dgc-compressed	DGCA	Windows	Windows

.dmg	application/x-apple-diskimage	Apple Disk Image	macOS	macOS, Windows, Linux	Yes	Supports "Internet-enabled" disk images, which, once downloaded, are automatically decompressed, mounted, have the contents extracted, and thrown away. Currently, Safari is the only browser that supports this form of extraction; however, the images can be manually extracted as well.

.ear	EAR	Multiple	Multiple	Yes	Enterprise Java Archive archive

.gca	application/x-gca-compressed	GCA	The predecessor of DGCA.

.ha	[2]	Originally DOS	Originally DOS	Yes, but may be covered by patents	DOS era format; uses arithmetic/Markov coding

.hki	WinHKI	MS Windows	MS Windows	No	HKI

.ice	ICE	Windows	Windows	Yes	Produced by ICEOWS program. Excels at text file compression.

.jar	application/java-archive	JAR	Multiple	Multiple	Yes	Java archive, compatible with ZIP files

.kgb	KGB Archiver	Multiple	Multiple	Yes	Open sourced archiver with compression using the PAQ family of algorithms and optional encryption.

.lzh, .lha	application/x-lzh	LHA	Originally DOS, now multiple	Multiple	Yes	The standard format on Amiga.

.lzx	application/x-lzx	LZX	Amiga	Archiver originally used on The Amiga. Now copied by Microsoft to use in their .cab and .chm files.

.pak	PAK	HP NonStop	HP NonStop	Yes	file format from NoGate Consultings, a rival from ARC-Compressor. .pak was also briefly used by the short lived MSDOS PKPAK program.

.partimg	PartImage	Multiple	Multiple	Yes	A disk image archive format that supports several compression methods as well as splitting the archive into smaller pieces.

.paq6, .paq7, .paq8 and variants	PAQ	Unix-like and Windows	Unix-like and Windows	Yes	An experimental open source packager (http://mattmahoney.net/dc)

.pea	PeaZip	Linux and Windows	Linux and Windows	Yes	Open source archiver supporting authenticated encryption, volume spanning, customizable object level and volume level integrity checks (form CRCs to SHA-512 and Whirlpool hashes), fast deflate based compression

.pim	PIM	Windows	Windows	Yes	The format from the PIM - a freeware compression tool by Ilia Muraviev. It uses an LZP-based compression algorithm with set of filters for executable, image and audio files.

.pit	PackIt	Classic Mac OS	obsolete

.qda	Quadruple D	Windows	Windows	Used for data in games written using the Quadruple D library for Delphi. Uses byte pair compression.

.rar	application/x-rar-compressed	RAR	Originally DOS, now multiple	Multiple	Yes	A proprietary archive format, second in popularity to .zip files.

.rk	RK and WinRK [3]	Multiple	Multiple	No	The format from a commercial archiving package. Odd among commercial packages in that they focus on incorporating experimental algorithms with the highest possible compression (at the expense of speed and memory), such as PAQ, PPMD and PPMZ (PPMD with unlimited-length strings), as well as a proprietary algorithms.

.sda	Self Dissolving ARChive	Commodore 64, Commodore 128	Commodore 64, Commodore 128	Yes	SDAs refer to Self Dissolving ARC files, and are based on the Commodore 64 and Commodore 128 versions of ARC, originally written by Chris Smeets.

.sea	Self Extracting Archive	Classic Mac OS	Classic Mac OS (implicitly)	A pre-Mac OS X Self-Extracting Archive format. StuffIt, Compact Pro, Disk Doubler and others could create .sea files, though the StuffIt versions were the most common.

.sen	Scifer	Multiple	Multiple	Yes	Scifer Archive with internal header

.sfx	Self Extracting Archive	Commodore 64, Commodore 128	Commodore 64, Commodore 128	Yes	SFX is a Self Extracting Archive which uses the LHArc compression algorithm. It was originally developed by Chris Smeets on the Commodore platform, and runs primarily using the CS-DOS extension for the Commodore 128.

.shk	NuFX	Originally Apple II, now multiple	Multiple	Yes	An archive format designed for the Apple II series of computers. The canonical implementation is ShrinkIt, which can operate on disk images as well as files.

.sit	application/x-stuffit	StuffIt	Originally Classic Mac OS, now multiple	Originally Classic Mac OS, now multiple	Yes	A compression format common on Apple Macintosh computers. The free StuffIt Expander is available for Windows and macOS.

.sitx	application/x-stuffitx	StuffIt X	Multiple	Multiple	Yes	The replacement for the .sit format that supports more compression methods, UNIX file permissions, long file names, very large files, more encryption options, data specific compressors (JPEG, Zip, PDF, 24-bit image, MP3).

.sqx	SQX	Windows	Windows	Yes	A royalty-free compressing format

.tar.gz, .tgz, .tar.Z, .tar.bz2, .tbz2, .tar.lzma, .tlz. .tar.xz, .txz	application/x-gtar	tar with gzip, compress, bzip2, lzma, or xz	Multiple	Multiple	Yes	The "tarball" format combines tar archives with a file-based compression scheme (usually gzip). Commonly used for source and binary distribution on Unix-like platforms, widely available elsewhere.

.uc .uc0 .uc2 .ucn .ur2 .ue2	UltraCompressor II	DOS	DOS	UltraCompressor 2.3 was developed to act as an alternative to the then popular PKZIP application. The main feature of the application is its ability to create large archives.

.uca	PerfectCompress	Windows	Windows	No	Based on PAQ, RZM, CSC, CCM, and 7zip. The format consists of a PAQ, RZM, CSC, or CCM compressed file and a manifest with compression settings stored in a 7z archive.

.uha	UHarc	DOS/Windows	DOS/Windows	Yes	A high compression rate archive format originally for DOS.

.war	WAR	Multiple	Multiple	Yes	Web Application archive (Java-based web app)

.wim	application/x-ms-wim	Windows Image	Windows	Windows	Yes	File-based disk image format developed to deploy Microsoft Windows.

.xar	application/x-xar	XAR	Multiple	Multiple	Yes

.xp3	KiriKiri	Windows	Windows	Yes	Native format of the Open Source KiriKiri Visual Novel engine. Uses combination of block splitting and zlib compression.

.yz1	YZ1	Windows, DOS, Linux	Windows, DOS, Linux	Yes	Yamazaki zipper archive. Compression format used in DeepFreezer archiver utility created by Yamazaki Satoshi.

.zip, .zipx	application/zip	ZIP	Originally DOS, now multiple	Multiple	Yes	The most widely used compression format on Microsoft Windows. Commonly used on Macintosh and Unix systems as well.

.zoo	application/x-zoo	zoo	Multiple	Multiple	Yes

.zpaq	ZPAQ	Multiple	Multiple	Yes	Journaling (append-only) archive format with rollback capability. Supports deduplication and incremental update based on last-modified dates.

.zz	Zzip	Multiple	Multiple	Yes	Archiver with a compression algorithm based on the Burrows-Wheeler transform method.

Sentence(s)

Archive formats include zip, rar, gzip, bzip2, sqx, and 7z.

final_sentence: Archive formats include zip, rar, gzip, bzip2, sqx, and 7z.