7-Zip is a free and open-source file archiver, a utility used to place groups of files within compressed containers known as "archives". It is developed by Igor Pavlov and was first released in 1999. 7-Zip has its own archive format called 7z, but can read and write several others.

The program can be used from a Windows graphical user interface that also features shell integration, from a Windows command-line interface as the command 7za.exe, and from POSIX systems as p7zip.^[12] Most of the 7-Zip source code is under the LGPL-2.1-or-later license; the unRAR code, however, is under the LGPL-2.1-or-later license with an "unRAR restriction", which states that developers are not permitted to use the code to reverse-engineer the RAR compression algorithm

7-Zip supports:

• 32 and 64-bit architecture support
• File Manager
• Encryption via the 256-bit AES cipher, which can be enabled for both files and the 7z hierarchy. When the hierarchy is encrypted, users are required to supply a password to see the filenames contained within the archive. WinZip-developed Zip file AES encryption standard is also available in 7-Zip to encrypt ZIP archives with AES 256-bit, but it does not offer filename encryption as in 7z archives.
• Volumes of dynamically variable sizes, allowing use for backups on removable media such as writable CDs and DVDs
• Usability as a basic orthodox file manager when used in dual panel mode
• Multiple-core CPU threading
• Opening EXE files as archives, allowing the decompression of data from inside many "Setup" or "Installer" or "Extract" type programs without having to launch them
• Unpacking archives with corrupted filenames, renaming the files as required
• Create self-extracting single-volume archives
• Command-line interface
• Graphical user interface. The Windows version comes with its own GUI; however, p7zip uses the GUI of the Unix/Linux Archive Manager.
• Calculating checksums in the formats CRC-32, CRC-64, SHA-1, or SHA-256 for files on disk, available either via command line or Explorer's context menu
• Available in 87 languages

7-Zip is a free and open-source file archiver, a utility used to place groups of files within compressed containers known as "archives". It is developed by Igor Pavlov and was first released in 1999. 7-Zip has its own archive format called 7z, but can read and write several others.

7-Zip Key Information:

Size: 1.1–1.7 MB

Operating system: Windows, BSD, macOS, Linux, ReactOS

Stable release: 22.00 (19 June 2022; 3 days ago)

Written in: Assembly, C and C++

Initial release: 19 July 1999; 22 years ago

Repository: sourceforge.net/projects/sevenzip/files/7-Zip/

Developer: Igor Pavlov, Free and open-source software