Editing 7z (section)

{{short description|Family of archive file formats used by 7-Zip}}
{{use dmy dates|date=July 2020}}
{{other uses|7Z (disambiguation)}}
{{Infobox file format
| name         = 7z file format
| icon         = 7zip archive icon.svg
| extension    = .7z
| mime         = application/x-7z-compressed
| uniform type = org.7-zip.7-zip-archive
| owner        = [[Igor Pavlov (programmer)|Igor Pavlov]]<ref name="dobb">{{cite web |url=http://www.ddj.com/architect/184405338 |title=A Few Questions for Igor Pavlov |date=2003-04-30 |publisher=[[Dr. Dobb's]] Data Compression Newsletter |access-date=2009-12-26 |archive-date=28 October 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081028091651/http://www.ddj.com/architect/184405338 |url-status=live }}</ref>
| released     = {{Start date and age|1999}}<ref name="History">{{Cite web |url=http://www.7-zip.org/history.txt |title=History of 7-zip changes |access-date=10 June 2010 |archive-date=27 February 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150227213935/http://www.7-zip.org/history.txt |url-status=live }}</ref>
| creatorcode  = 
| genre        = [[Data compression]]
| magic        = '7', 'z', 0xBC, 0xAF, 0x27, 0x1C
| max_size = 2<sup>64</sup> bytes (roughly 18 [[exabytes]])
| containerfor = 
| containedby  = 
| extendedfrom = 
| extendedto   = 
| open         = Yes: [[GNU Lesser General Public License]] / [[Public domain]]
| url          = {{URL|7-zip.org}}

}}

'''7z''' is a compressed [[archive file format]] that supports several different [[data compression]], [[encryption]] and pre-processing algorithms.  The 7z format initially appeared as implemented by the [[7-Zip]] archiver.  The 7-Zip program is publicly available under the terms of the [[GNU Lesser General Public License]].  The LZMA SDK 4.62 was placed in the [[public domain]] in December 2008.  The latest stable version of 7-Zip and [[Lempel-Ziv-Markov chain algorithm|LZMA]] SDK is version 24.09.<ref name="History"/>

The 7z file format specification is distributed with 7-Zip's source code since 2015. The specification can be found in plain text format in the "doc" sub-directory of the source code distribution.<ref>LZMA SDK, "DOC" directory, 7zFormat.txt</ref>