Open 7-z file

7-z file icon Did your computer fail to open 7-z file? We explain what 7-z files are and recommend software that we know can open your 7-z files.

What is 7-z file?

A 7-z file extension is related to the 7-zip compression tool. A 7-z file contains compressed archive.

7-z file description

Default file extension for 7z compressed archive file is 7z.

7z is the new backup, archive - compressed file format, providing high compression ratio.

The main features of 7z format:
- Open architecture
- High compression ratio
- Strong AES-256 encryption
- Ability of using any compression, conversion or encryption method
- Support for very large files with sizes up to 16000000000 GB
- Unicode file name support
- Solid compression ratio
- Archive headers compression

7z has an open architecture, so it can support any new compression method, too. The following methods currently are integrated into 7z:

LZMA Improved and optimized version of LZ77 algorithm
PPMD Dmitry Shkarin's PPMdH with small changes
BCJ Converter for 32-bit x86 executables
BCJ2 Converter for 32-bit x86 executables
BZip2 Standard BWT algorithm
Deflate Standard LZ77-based algorithm

LZMA is the default and general compression method of 7z format. The main features of LZMA are:

  • High compression ratio
  • Variable dictionary size (up to 4 GB)
  • Compression speed: about 1 MB/s on 2 GHz CPU
  • Decompression speed: about 10-20 MB/s on 2 GHz CPU
  • Small memory requirement for decompression (depend from dictionary size)
  • Small code size for decompression: about 5 KB
  • Supports multi-threading and P4's hyper-threading

The LZMA compression algorithm is very suitable for embedded applications. LZMA is released under the terms of the GNU LGPL.

7-Zip supports encryption with the AES-256 algorithm. This algorithm uses a cipher key with a length of 256 bits. To create that key, 7-Zip runs a derivation function based on a SHA-256 hash algorithm. A key derivation function produces a derived key from the text password entered by the user. To increase the cost of an exhaustive search to crack a password, 7-Zip uses a large number of iterations when it produces a cipher key from a password.

7z is part of the 7-Zip program distributed under the GNU LGPL.

Software that will open 7-z file

7-zip

Popular open source file archiver with a high compression ratio

What file extension actually is?

Simply put, file extensions are the characters after the dot in the file name, so for example filename.mp3 has file extension „mp3“. This helps Windows to identify which program should be used to open the file.

We can help you to open your file

Our database contains a huge list of different file extensions, usually with detailed description and programs that can be used to open or otherwise work with that particular file type.

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Every software listed in our database is verified and ve provide link to the developer or to the software own website, which should hopefuly be enough for you to download the most recent version of the program.