.7z · application/x-7z-compressed
What is a .7z file?
7-Zip Archive
About the format
A .7z file is an archive in 7-Zip's own format, chosen over ZIP mainly for its compression: LZMA/LZMA2 routinely produces noticeably smaller archives than classic ZIP, which is why big downloads, game mods and dataset dumps favour it. It also supports strong AES-256 encryption with the option to encrypt file NAMES as well as contents (a password-protected 7z can hide even its file listing) and solid compression, which packs similar files together for better ratios at the cost of slower single-file extraction. Windows 11 added native 7z extraction to Explorer in 2023; on anything older, or for creating archives, the free 7-Zip application is the standard answer (it also opens RAR, ISO, CAB and most other archive formats, making it the one archive tool worth installing). Security posture mirrors ZIP exactly: the container is inert, the extracted contents deserve the scrutiny — and password-protected archives from strangers are a scanner-evasion pattern.
How to open a .7z file
Windows
- Windows 11 Explorer (extract)
- 7-Zip (full support, free)
macOS
- Keka, The Unarchiver
Linux
- 7zip / p7zip
Is a .7z file dangerous?
Same as ZIP — judge the contents, and be wary of password-protected archives from unexpected sources.
Related file types
Not sure what a file is? Check its bytes.
File names lie; magic numbers don't. Drop any file into the identifier — nothing is uploaded.
Identify a file →