SMPQ(1)

✨ SMPQ — StormLib MPQ archiving utility ✨

okay bestie, welcome to SMPQ(1), aka the StormLib MPQ archiving utility, version 1.7 💖 this is the general commands manual entry for it, and yes it lives in section 1 of the manual. sit down, get comfy, we're gonna archive some stuff 🎀

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

smpq [action] [options] [archive] [files]

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🦋 NAME 🦋

SMPQ — the StormLib MPQ archiving utility, version 1.7. that's the whole name, she's lowkey iconic 💅

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💅 ACTION 💅

pick ONE of these, that's your vibe for the run, bestie:

• -c, --create — make a brand new archive and put the file(s) in it 🎀
• -a, --append, --add — add more file(s) to an archive that already exists
• -d, -r, --delete, --remove — yeet file(s) out of the archive 💀
• -R, --rename — rename a file inside the archive, glow-up era
• -l, --list — list out the file(s) in the archive
• -e, -x, --extract — pull file(s) out of the archive
• -i, --info — show info about the archive
• -h, -u, --help, --usage — show this help/usage info, the classic
• -V, --license, --version — show version + license info 👑

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🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

• -L, --listfile <file> — an extra external listfile (heads up: this one is NOT used when you're appending a file)
• -n, --no-system-listfiles — don't load the system listfile(s) (again, not used when appending a file)
• -N, --no-archive-listfile — don't use or create an archive listfile, which means file names just won't be read or stored, periodt
• -A, --no-attributes — don't allow file attributes to be used (that's time, checksum, hash)
• -M, --mpq-version <version> — pick the MPQ archive version (default: it uses the new version 4)
  • 1 — supports archive sizes up to 4GB 🍓
  • 2 — supports archives greater than 4GB (introduced in World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade)
  • 3 — (introduced in World of Warcraft: Cataclysm Beta)
  • 4 — (introduced in World of Warcraft: Cataclysm)
• -S, --sector-crc — store/check a CRC for each sector, but it's ignored if the file has no compression or is a single unit
• -q, --quiet — be quiet, no output at all, silent treatment era 🙈
• -f, -o, --force, --overwrite — allow overwriting file(s)
• -v, --verbose — turn on verbose output, spill the tea
• -O, --locale <id> — set the locale id (default: neutral = 0)

ngl, for all the locale ids you gotta check [MS-LCID] section 2.2: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/openspecs/windows_protocols/ms-lcid/

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🌈 OPTIONS FOR APPENDING FILE(S) TO ARCHIVE 🌈

• -m, --max-file-count <count> — set the max file count of the archive (it's a power of 2, and 0 means autodetect) (default: 0)
• -E, --encrypt — store it encrypted 🔒
• -F, --fix-key — the encryption key gets adjusted according to the file size in the archive (and yes, you need -E for this one)
• -D, --deletion-marker — set the deletion marker
• -U, --single-unit — add the file as a single unit, and no, it cannot be encrypted
• -C, --compression <method> — the compression method (default: ZLIB):
  • none — none compression
  • IMPLODE — Pkware Data Compression IMPLODE method, which is OBSOLETE (it was used only in Diablo I)
  • PKWARE — Pkware Data compression
  • HUFFMANN — Huffmann compression (introduced in Starcraft I)
  • ADPCM_MONO — IMA ADPCM compression for 1-channel (mono) WAVE files — lossy compression, only for WAVE files (and now it is not used)
  • ADPCM_STEREO — IMA ADPCM compression for 2-channel (stereo) WAVE files — lossy compression, only for WAVE files (and now it is not used)
  • ZLIB — ZLIB compression (introduced in Warcraft III)
  • BZIP2 — BZIP2 compression (introduced in World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade)
  • SPARSE — SPARSE compression (introduced in Starcraft II)
  • LZMA — LZMA compression (introduced in Starcraft II)
  • HUFFMANN+ADPCM_MONO — Huffmann and IMA ADPCM together, for 1-channel (mono) WAVE files
  • HUFFMANN+ADPCM_STEREO — Huffmann and IMA ADPCM together, for 2-channel (stereo) WAVE files
  • ZLIB+PKWARE — ZLIB and Pkware Data compression together
  • BZIP2+PKWARE — BZIP2 and Pkware Data compression together
  • SPARSE+ZLIB — SPARSE and ZLIB compression together
  • SPARSE+PKWARE — SPARSE and Pkware Data compression together
  • SPARSE+BZIP2 — SPARSE and BZIP2 compression together
  • SPARSE+ZLIB+PKWARE — SPARSE, ZLIB and Pkware Data compression together
  • SPARSE+BZIP2+PKWARE — SPARSE, BZIP2 and Pkware Data compression together

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🧚 OPTIONS FOR EXTRACTING FILE(S) FROM ARCHIVE 🧚

• -P, --partial — the archive is partial (default: autodetect) — partial archives were used by the trial version of World of Warcraft, fun fact ⭐
• -X, --not-encrypted — the archive is not encrypted (default: autodetect) — encrypted archives are what Starcraft II installation has
• -p — open more (patched) archives with a directory prefix (that's prefix:archive), and when a file lives in more than one archive, it gets extracted from the last one

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👑 USAGE WITH MORE (PATCHED) ARCHIVES 👑

smpq -l|-x [options] [archive] -p [prefix1:archive1] [prefix2:archive2] ... -- [files]

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💜 EXAMPLES 💜

Create an empty archive archive.mpq:

smpq -c archive.mpq

Create archive archive.mpq with two files file1.txt and file2.txt:

smpq -c archive.mpq file1.txt file2.txt

Extract all files from archive archive.mpq to the current directory:

smpq -x archive.mpq

Extract the files with the extension .txt from archive archive.mpq:

smpq -x archive.mpq '*.txt'

Show information about archive archive.mpq:

smpq -i archive.mpq

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🌟 AUTHOR 🌟

SMPQ is written by Pali Rohár <pali.rohar@gmail.com> — thank you bestie 🫶

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📜 LICENSE 📜

SMPQ is distributed under the GNU GPL v3. slay, legally.

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and that's the whole page, fr fr 💖 source + version: SMPQ — StormLib MPQ archiving utility, and the date on this one is Apr 14 2026, filed under SMPQ(1). okay love u, go archive something, bye 🦋✨