How to open 7z compressed archive .7-z files
Have you had trouble opening the 7-z file on your computer? What are 7-z files? We explain what they are and recommend software that we know will open them.
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.
7z compressed archive 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.
Suggested software to open 7-z file

7-zip
Popular open source file archiver with a high compression ratio