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This is a list of file formats used by archivers and compressors used to create archive files.

Contents 1 Archiving only 2 Compression only 3 Archiving and compression 4 Data Recovery 5 Footnotes 5.1 Platforms 6 See also 7 External links

[edit] Archiving only

File extension(s)[1]	MIME type[2]	Official name[3]	Platform[4]	Description
.a, .ar		Unix Archiver	Unix-like	The traditional archive format on Unix-like systems, now used mainly for the creation of static libraries.
.cpio	application/x-cpio	cpio	Unix-like	RPM files consist of metadata concatenated with (usually) a cpio archive. Newer RPM systems also support other archives, as cpio is becoming obsolete.
.shar	application/x-shar	Shell archive	Unix-like	A self-extracting archive that uses the Bourne shell (sh).
.LBR		.LBR	MS-DOS	A system for storing multiple files. LBR archives typically contained files processed by SQ, or the archive itself was compressed with SQ. LBR archives that were compressed with SQ ended with the extension .LQR
.lbr			Commodore 64/128	A library format used primarily on the Commodore 64 and 128 lines of computers. This bears no resemblance to the MS-DOS LBR format. While library files were quick to implement (a number of programs exist to work with them) they are crippled in that they cannot grow with use: once a file has been created it cannot be amended (files added, changed or deleted) without recreating the entire file.
.tar	application/x-tar	Tape archive	Unix-like	A common archive format used on Unix-like systems. Generally used in conjunction with compressors such as gzip, bzip2 or compress to create .tar.gz, .tar.bz or .tar.Z files.

[edit] Compression only

File extension(s)[1]	MIME type[2]	Official name[3]	Platform[4]	Description
.bz2	application/x-bzip2	bzip2	Unix-like	An open source, patent- and royalty-free compression format. The compression algorithm is a Burrows-Wheeler transform followed by a move-to-front transform and finally Huffman coding
.F		Freeze/melt[1]	QNX4	Old compressor for QNX4 OS. The compression algorithm is a modified LZSS, with an adaptive Huffman coding.
.gz	application/x-gzip	gzip	Unix-like	GNU Zip, the primary compression format used by Unix-like systems. The compression algorithm is DEFLATE.
.lz	application/x-lzip	lzip	Unix-like	An alternate LZMA algorithm implementation, with support for checksums and ident bytes.
.lzma		lzma	Unix-like	The LZMA compression algorithm as used by 7-Zip
.lzo		lzop	Unix-like	An implementation of the LZO data compression algorithm
.rz		rzip	Unix-like	A compression program designed to do particularly well on very large files containing long distance redundancy.
.sfark		sfark	Windows compress/decompress- Linux and Mac OS X decompress only	A compression program designed to do high compression on SF2 files (SoundFont)
.?Q?		SQ	CP/M and MS-DOS	Squeeze: A program which compressed files. A file which was "squeezed" had the middle initial of the name changed to "Q", so that a squeezed text file would end with .TQT, a squeezed executable would end with .CQM or .EQE. Typically used with .LBR archives, either by storing the squeezed files in the archive, or by storing the files uncompressed and then compressing the archive, which would have a name ending in ".LQR".
.z	application/x-compress	pack	Unix-like	The old Huffman coding compression format.
.Z	application/x-compress	compress	Unix-like	The traditional LZW compression format.
.??_			MS-DOS/Windows	Compression format(s) used by some Windows and MS-DOS install programs. MS-DOS includes expand.exe to uncompress its install files. The compressed files are created with a matching compress.exe command. The compression algorithm is LZSS.

[edit] Archiving and compression

File extension(s)[1]	MIME type[2]	Official name[3]	Creation platform[4]	Restoration platform[5]	Restoring with free software[6]	Description
.7z	application/x-7z-compressed	7z	Multiple	Multiple	Yes	Open source file format. Used by 7-Zip.
.s7z	application/x-7z-compressed	7zX	Mac OS X	Mac OS X, restoration on different platforms is possible although not immediate	Yes	Based on 7z. Preserves Spotlight metadata, resource forks, owner/group informations, dates and other data which would be otherwise lost with compression. Made obsolete by the introduction of AppleDouble-encoded 7z archives (Macintosh only).
.ace	application/x-ace-compressed	ACE	Windows	Windows, GNU/Linux, Mac OS X	Old archive versions only	Proprietary format
.arc		ARC	Multiple	Multiple	Yes
.alz	application/x-alz-compressed	ALZip	Windows	Multiple	Yes	A format designed for very large archives.
.arj		ARJ	Originally DOS, now multiple	Multiple	Yes
.ba		Scifer	Multiple	Multiple	Yes	Binary Archive with external header
.bh		BlackHole			No	Proprietary format from the ZipTV Compression Components
.cab	application/vnd.ms-cab-compressed	Cabinet	Windows	Multiple	Yes	The Microsoft Windows native archive format, which is also used by many commercial installers such as InstallShield and WISE.
.cpt		Compact Pro	Mac OS			Compact Pro archive, a common archiver used on Mac platforms until about Mac OS 7.5.x. Competed with StuffIt; now obsolete.
.dar	application/x-dar	Disk Archiver	Windows, Unix-like, Mac OS X	Windows, Unix-like, Mac OS X	Yes	Open source file format. Files are compressed individually with either gzip or bzip2.
.dd		DiskDoubler	Mac OS			obsolete
.dgc	application/x-dgc-compressed	DGCA	Windows	Windows
.dmg	application/x-apple-diskimage	Disk Image	Mac OS X	Mac OS X		Supports "Internet-enabled" disk images, which, once downloaded, are automatically decompressed, mounted, have the contents extracted, and thrown away. Currently, Safari is the only browser that supports this form of extraction; however, the images can be manually extracted as well. This format can also be password-protected or encrypted with 128-bit or 256-bit AES encryption.
.gca	application/x-gca-compressed	GCA				The predecessor of DGCA.
.ha		[2]	Originally DOS	Originally DOS	Yes, but may be covered by patents	DOS era format; uses arithmetic/Markov coding
.hki		WinHKI	Multiple	Multiple	No	HKI
.ice		ICE	Windows	Windows	Yes	Produced by ICEOWS program. Excels at text file compression.
.j		Jar	Multiple	Multiple	Yes	Jar archive, the successor to ARJ
.kgb		KGB Archiver	Multiple	Multiple	Yes	Open sourced archiver with compression using the PAQ family of algorithms and optional encryption.
.lzh, .lha	application/x-lzh	LHA	Originally DOS, now multiple	Multiple	Yes	The standard format on Amiga.
.lzx	application/x-lzx	LZX	Amiga			Archiver originally used on The Amiga. Now copied by Microsoft to use in their .cab and .chm files.
.partimg		PartImage	Multiple	Multiple	Yes	A disk image archive format that supports several compression methods as well as splitting the archive into smaller pieces.
.paq6, .paq7, .paq8 and variants		PAQ	Unix-like and Windows	Unix-like and Windows	Yes	An experimental open source packager (http://www.cs.fit.edu/~mmahoney/compression)
.pea		PeaZip	Linux and Windows	Linux and Windows	Yes	Open source archiver supporting authenticated encryption, volume spanning, customizable object level and volume level integrity checks (form CRCs to SHA512 and Whirlpool hashes), fast deflate based compression
.pim		PIM	Windows	Windows	Yes	The format from the PIM - a freeware compression tool by Ilia Muraviev. It uses an LZP-based compression algorithm with set of filters for executable, image and audio files.
.pit		PackIt	Mac OS			obsolete
.qda		Quadruple D	Windows	Windows		Used for data in games written using the Quadruple D library for Delphi. Uses byte pair compression.
.rar	application/x-rar-compressed	RAR	Originally DOS, now multiple	Multiple	Old archive versions only[7]	A proprietary archive format, second in popularity to .zip files.
.rk		RK and WinRK [3]	Multiple	Multiple	No	The format from a commercial archiving package. Odd among commercial packages in that they focus on incorporating experimental algorithms with the highest possible compression (at the expense of speed and memory), such as PAQ, PPMD and PPMZ (PPMD with unlimited-length strings), as well as a proprietary algorithms.
.sda		Self Dissolving ARChive.	Commodore 64, Commodore 128	Commodore 64, Commodore 128	N/A	SDAs refer to Self Dissolving ARC files, and are based on the Commodore 64 and Commodore 128 versions of ARC, originally written by Chris Smeets. While the files share the same extension, they are not compatible between platforms. That is, an SDA created on a Commodore 64 but run on a Commodore 128 in Commodore 128 mode will crash the machine, and vice-versa. The intended successor to SDA is SFX.
.sea		sea	Mac OS	Mac OS (implicitly)		A pre-Mac OS X Self-Extracting Archive format. StuffIt, Compact Pro, Disk Doubler and others could create .sea files, though the StuffIt versions were the most common.
.sen		Scifer	Multiple	Multiple	Yes	Scifer Archive with internal header
.sfx		Self Extracting Archive	Commodore 64, Commodore 128	Commodore 64, Commodore 128	N/A	SFX is a Self Extracting Archive which uses the LHArc compression algorithm. It was originally developed by Chris Smeets on the Commodore platform, and runs primarily using the CS-DOS extension for the Commodore 128. Unlike it's predecessor SDA, SFX files will run on both the Commodore 64 and Commodore 128 regardless of which machine they were created on.
.sit	application/x-stuffit	StuffIt	Originally Mac OS, now multiple	Originally Mac OS, now multiple	No	A compression format common on Apple Macintosh computers.
.sitx	application/x-stuffitx	StuffIt X	Multiple	Multiple	No	A new version of the .sit format that supports more compression methods, UNIX file permissions, long file names, very large files, more encryption options, data specific compressors (JPEG, Zip, PDF, 24-bit image, MP3).
.sqx		SQX	Windows	Windows		A royalty-free compressing format
.tar.gz, .tgz, .tar.Z, .tar.bz2, .tbz2, .tar.lzma, .tlz	application/x-gtar	tar with gzip, compress, bzip2, or lzma	Multiple	Multiple	Yes	The "tarball" format combines tar archives with a file-based compression scheme (usually gzip). Commonly used for source and binary distribution on Unix-like platforms, widely available elsewhere.
.uha		UHarc	DOS/Windows	DOS/Windows	No
.wim		Windows Image	Windows	Windows		File-based disk image format developed to deploy Microsoft Windows.
.xar		XAR	Multiple	Multiple	Yes
.zip	application/zip	ZIP	Originally DOS, now multiple	Multiple	Yes	The most widely used compression format on Microsoft Windows. Commonly used on Macintosh and Unix systems too.
.zoo		zoo	Multiple	Multiple	Yes
.zz		Zzip	Multiple	Multiple	Yes	Archiver with a compression algorithm based on the Burrows-Wheeler transform method.

[edit] Data Recovery

File extension(s)[1]	MIME type[2]	Official name[3]	Platform[4]	Description
.ecc		dvdisaster error-correction file	Multiple	File format used by dvdisaster to be used for data recovery when discs become damaged or partially unreadable.
.par .par2		Parchive file	Multiple	File format used in conjunction with any archive format to provide redundancy and data recovery, most often in newsgroup distribution of binary files.

[edit] Footnotes

1. ^ ^{a b c d} File extensions may differ across platforms. The case of these extensions may differ on case-insensitive platforms.
2. ^ ^{a b c d} MIME media types may be conjectural. Very few have been officially registered with the IANA. Compression-only formats should often be denoted by the media type of the uncompressed data, with a content coding indicating the compression format.
3. ^ ^{a b c d} Official names may be disputed.
4. ^ ^{a b c d} Creation platform indicates the platform(s) under which a format can be created.
5. ^ Restoration platform indicates the platform(s) under which a format can be restored/extracted. Most file formats can be understood by more than one platform.
6. ^ "Restoring with free software" indicates whether the format can be restored using an extraction tool that is free software.
7. ^ 7-zip uses a proprietary plugin under "unRAR license"(this license is LGPL with a restriction that it cannot be used to recover RAR compression format) for the newer archives while rest of 7-zip is free software under LGPL license.

[edit] Platforms

• Unix-like — Systems such as Linux, BSD, Solaris, etc.
• GNU/Linux — Common only on Linux.
• Macintosh — Available for all versions of the Mac OS.
• Mac OS X — Only available on Mac OS X; OS X is also usually compatible with Unix-like formats.
• Windows — Microsoft Windows, always includes 32-bit x86 and often 64-bit x86-64 and IA64 versions.
• Amiga
• Commodore 64 - Runs natively on the Commodore 64.
• Commodore 128 - Runs natively on the Commodore 128.
• Commodore 128 - Runs on the Commodore 128 using the CS-DOS OS extension.
• GEOS - Runs on the Commodore 64/128 using the GEOS operating system.

[edit] See also

• Comparison of archive formats
• Comparison of file archivers
• Archive file
• zlib
• Solid compression

[edit] External links

• (French) Comparison of various compression formats
• Archive and Compressed file extensions

v • d • e Archive formats (comparison by type) Archiving only ar · cpio · shar · tar · LBR Compression only bzip2 · gzip · LZMA · SQ · compress Archiving and compression 7z · ACE · ARC · Cabinet · cpt · DGCA · .dmg · GCA · kgb · LHA · LZX · RAR · qda · sit · SQX · zoo · ZIP Software packaging and distribution deb · pkg · RPM · MSI · JAR (WAR · RAR (Java) · EAR)