LZIP(1)

📦
version 1.26 · 4 versions
, in alpine 3.24, arch rolling, fedora 43, fedora 44, nixpkgs unstable

💖 LZIP(1) — like, the manual page for lzip 💖

okay bestie, gather round, because we're about to talk about the user commands section of the manual and honestly? it's giving icon status. this is the lzip page, and she's here to make your files smol. ✨

🌸 NAME 🌸

lzip — reduces the size of files. that's it. that's the whole job. she shrinks things. slay. 💅

🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

lzip [options] [files]

like... that's the whole vibe. options, then files. periodt.

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

okay so Lzip is a lossless data compressor — lossless meaning nothing gets lost, everything comes back exactly how it was, no cap — and her user interface is lowkey similar to the one of gzip or bzip2. iykyk.

Lzip uses a simplified form of LZMA (Lempel-Ziv-Markov chain-Algorithm) and she's literally designed to achieve complete interoperability between implementations. the maximum dictionary size is 512 MiB so that any lzip file can be decompressed on 32-bit machines. thoughtful queen behavior fr fr. 👑

Lzip provides accurate and robust 3-factor integrity checking. and like, the speed tea: lzip -0 compresses about as fast as gzip, while lzip -9 compresses most files more than bzip2. decompression speed is intermediate between gzip and bzip2. Lzip provides better data recovery capabilities than gzip and bzip2. main character energy honestly. 💅

Lzip has been designed, written, and tested with great care to replace gzip and bzip2 as general-purpose compressed format for Unix-like systems. not me being dramatic, that's literally what the page says. iconic.

✨ OPTIONS ✨

  • -h — display usage help and exit. short and sweet bestie 🫶
  • --help — display full help and exit. the extended cut, the director's version 💖
  • -V, --version — output version information and exit. tell me who you are queen 👑
  • -a, --trailing-error — exit with error status if trailing data. she's watching. 👀
  • -b, --member-size=<bytes> — set member size limit of multimember files
  • -c, --stdout — write to standard output, keep input files
  • -d, --decompress — decompress, test compressed file integrity
  • -f, --force — overwrite existing output files. rude but necessary 💀
  • -F, --recompress — force re-compression of compressed files. again?? okay diva ✨
  • -k, --keep — keep (don't delete) input files. don't be a monster 🙈
  • -l, --list — print (un)compressed file sizes. receipts, basically 🧾
  • -m, --match-length=<bytes> — set match length limit in bytes [36]
  • -o, --output=<file> — write to <file>, keep input files
  • -q, --quiet — suppress all messages. shhh, she's in her silent era 🤫
  • -s, --dictionary-size=<bytes> — set dictionary size limit in bytes [8 MiB]
  • -S, --volume-size=<bytes> — set volume size limit in bytes
  • -t, --test — test compressed file integrity
  • -v, --verbose — be verbose (a 2nd -v gives more). the way she just keeps talking 💬
  • -0 .. -9 — set compression level [default 6]
  • --loose-trailing — allow trailing data seeming corrupt header

Lzip replaces each named file with a (de)compressed version. if no file names are given, or if a file is '-', lzip compresses or decompresses from standard input to standard output. classic.

numbers may contain underscore separators between groups of digits and may be followed by a SI or binary multiplier: 1_234_567kB, 4KiB. and like, dictionary sizes 12 to 29 are interpreted as powers of two, meaning 2^12 to 2^29 bytes. math girlies rise 🧚

the bidimensional parameter space of LZMA can't be mapped to a linear scale optimal for all files. ngl that's just how she is. if your files are large, very repetitive, etc, you may need to use the options --dictionary-size and --match-length directly to achieve optimal performance. manual tuning era 🎛️

to extract all the files from archive 'foo.tar.lz', use the commands:

tar -xf foo.tar.lz

or

lzip -cd foo.tar.lz | tar -xf -

both work, pick your fave bestie 💖

the ideas embodied in lzip are due to (at least) the following people, and we're giving them their flowers 💐:

  • Abraham Lempel and Jacob Ziv — for the LZ algorithm
  • Andrei Markov — for the definition of Markov chains
  • G.N.N. Martin — for the definition of range encoding
  • Igor Pavlov — for putting all the above together in LZMA
  • Julian Seward — for bzip2's CLI

legends, every single one. 👑

💀 EXIT STATUS 💀

  • 0 — for a normal exit. we love a happy ending 🥳
  • 1 — for environmental problems (file not found, invalid command-line options, I/O errors, etc). oop 😭
  • 2 — to indicate a corrupt or invalid input file. she's broken bestie 💔
  • 3 — for an internal consistency error (e.g., bug) which caused lzip to panic. full meltdown. scream. it's giving internal crisis 🚨

🙈 REPORTING BUGS 🙈

found a bug? don't just suffer in silence, tell someone:

Copyright © 2026 Antonio Diaz Diaz. License GPLv2+: GNU GPL version 2 or later http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html

this is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.

There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law. no safety net bestie, that's the deal 💀

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

the full documentation for lzip is maintained as a Texinfo manual. if the info and lzip programs are properly installed at your site, the command

info lzip

should give you access to the complete manual. go read it, it's the extended lore 📖✨

and that's the whole page, bestie 🫶 this was lzip 1.26, dated March 2026, and she ate. go compress something. mwah 💖💅✨

📦 where this page comes from