7z(1)

okay so bestie, you've found 7z(1) — the manpage from the General Commands Manual for the 7-Zip file archiver, aka the compression tool with a high compression ratio that absolutely ate. grab a snack, we're going through the whole thing 🍓

✨ NAME ✨

7z — 7-Zip file archiver with a high compression ratio

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🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

like, here's the shape of every single call, and yes there are four flavors:

7z command [switches...] archive_name [file_names] [@listfile]

7zz command [switches...] archive_name [file_names] [@listfile]

7za command [switches...] archive_name [file_names] [@listfile]

7zr command [switches...] archive_name [file_names] [@listfile]

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

7-Zip file archiver with a high compression ratio ✨

so here's the tea: there are several variants of the 7z executable, and they are not all the same girlie. let me introduce them:

• 7z — full featured with plugin support 👑 the main character, plugins and all.
• 7zz — full featured single binary executable with no plugins support. same full-featured energy, but it's one single binary and plugins said bye 🙈
• 7za — supports major formats only, no plugins, but smaller executable size. lowkey the compact queen 🎀
• 7zr — only supports LZMA codec and related formats (7z, lzma, xz), no plugins, but smallest executable size. tiniest of them all, literally 💀

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🔥 OPTIONS 🔥

💜 Commands 💜

these are the vibes — pick one, it's the thing you're actually doing:

• a — Add files to archive 🫶
• b — Benchmark (a little performance moment, no archive needed)
• d — Delete files from archive
• e — Extract files from archive (without using directory names — yes, it flattens, she's messy like that)
• h — Calculate hash values for files 🔐
• i — Show information about supported formats (the info dump you need)
• l — List contents of archive
• rn — Rename files in archive
• t — Test integrity of archive (vibe check on your archive, fr fr)
• u — Update files to archive
• x — eXtract files with full paths (the one that keeps the directory structure, we stan 🌸)

💅 Switches 💅

all the little modifiers, in order, nothing skipped, no cap:

• -- — Stop switches and @listfile parsing 🛑
• -ai[r[-|0]]{@listfile|!wildcard} — Include archives
• -ax[r[-|0]]{@listfile|!wildcard} — eXclude archives
• -ao{a|s|t|u} — set Overwrite mode
• -an — disable archive_name field
• -bb[0-3] — set output log level
• -bd — disable progress indicator (no lil progress bar for you)
• -bs{o|e|p}{0|1|2} — set output stream for output/error/progress line
• -bt — show execution time statistics ⏱️
• -i[r[-|0]]{@listfile|!wildcard} — Include filenames
• -m{Parameters} — set compression Method 🗜️ and the sub-params are:
  • -mmt[N] — set number of CPU threads
  • -mx[N] — set compression level: -mx1 (fastest) ... -mx9 (ultra)
• -o{Directory} — set Output directory
• -p{Password} — set Password 🔑
• -r[-|0] — Recurse subdirectories for name search
• -sa{a|e|s} — set Archive name mode
• -scc{UTF-8|WIN|DOS} — set charset for console input/output
• -scs{UTF-8|UTF-16LE|UTF-16BE|WIN|DOS|{id}} — set charset for list files
• -scrc[CRC32|CRC64|SHA1|SHA256|*] — set hash function for x, e, h commands
• -sdel — delete files after compression 🗑️
• -seml[.] — send archive by email 📧
• -sfx[{name}] — Create SFX archive
• -si[{name}] — read data from stdin
• -slp — set Large Pages mode
• -slt — show technical information for l (List) command
• -snh — store hard links as links
• -snl — store symbolic links as links
• -sni — store NT security information
• -sns[-] — store NTFS alternate streams
• -so — write data to stdout
• -spd — disable wildcard matching for file names
• -spe — eliminate duplication of root folder for extract command
• -spf — use fully qualified file paths
• -ssc[-] — set sensitive case mode
• -sse — stop archive creating, if it can't open some input file
• -ssp — do not change Last Access Time of source files while archiving
• -ssw — compress shared files
• -stl — set archive timestamp from the most recently modified file
• -stm{HexMask} — set CPU thread affinity mask (hexadecimal number)
• -stx{Type} — exclude archive type
• -t{Type} — Set type of archive
• -u[-][p#][q#][r#][x#][y#][z#][!newArchiveName] — Update options
• -v{Size}[b|k|m|g] — Create volumes
• -w[{path}] — assign Work directory. Empty path means a temporary directory
• -x[r[-|0]]{@listfile|!wildcard} — eXclude filenames
• -y — assume Yes on all queries 🙈 (extremely "just say yes and don't ask me again" energy)

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🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

• 7-Zip — https://www.7-zip.org/ 🦋

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👑 COPYRIGHT 👑

Copyright © 1999-2023 Igor Pavlov.

Distributed under the LGPL-2.1+ license.

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and that's the whole page, bestie, you're basically a 7-Zip scholar now 💅✨ this was version 22.01, dated May 2023 — so if anyone asks, that's the era we're living in 🎀