Decompressing 7-zip ( 7z ) archive files

7-zip is toted to have a higher compression ratio than the regular zip archives. The 7-zip compressed files usually have a .7z extension , but lets check with 'file' command to find what kind of file it is. $ file archive.7z archive.7z: 7-zip archive data, version 0.2 ( For this tutorial I created a 7-zip compressed archive (archive.7z) with few blank files beforehand.) Alright now lets find out what packages in GNU/Debian Sid provide tools to handle 7-zip files. $apt-cache search 7-zip advancecomp - collection of recompression utilities krusader - twin-panel (commander-style) file manager for KDE (and other desktops) lzma - Default and general compression method of 7z format in 7-Zip program p7zip - 7zr file archiver with high compression ratio p7zip-full - 7z and 7za file archivers with high compression ratio p7zip-rar - non-free rar module for p7zip Hmm, Lets go with "p7zip" package and install it. $ apt-get install p7zip The "p7zip" package provides /usr/bin/7zr program which I here use to list (l) and extract (x) our archive file. Listing with "l" parameter shows the contents of the archive. $ 7zr l archive.7z 7-Zip (A) 4.55 beta Copyright (c) 1999-2007 Igor Pavlov 2007-09-05 p7zip Version 4.55 (locale=C,Utf16=off,HugeFiles=on,1 CPU) Listing archive: archive.7z Solid = - Blocks = 0 Date Time Attr Size Compressed Name ------------------- ----- ------------ ------------ ------------------------ 2007-09-27 16:18:37 ....A 0 0 bar1 2007-09-27 16:18:58 ....A 0 0 bar2 2007-09-27 16:18:58 ....A 0 0 bar3 2007-09-27 16:18:58 ....A 0 0 bar4 ------------------- ----- ------------ ------------ ------------------------ 0 0 4 files, 0 folders Lets extract the files in the archive with "x" option. This uncompress the files to the current directory. $ 7zr x archive.7z 7-Zip (A) 4.55 beta Copyright (c) 1999-2007 Igor Pavlov 2007-09-05 p7zip Version 4.55 (locale=C,Utf16=off,HugeFiles=on,1 CPU) Processing archive: archive.7z Extracting bar1 Extracting bar2 Extracting bar3 Extracting bar4 Everything is Ok Total: Folders: 0 Files: 4 Size: 0 Compressed: 130