.7zOpen format specification • Maintained by Igor Pavlov
7-Zip Compressed Archive
An open-source compressed archive format featuring high compression ratios through the LZMA and LZMA2 algorithms, along with strong 256-bit AES cryptographic encryption.
Format Security & Threat Profile
Macro / Script Execution RiskNone
Native Cryptographic EncryptionSupported
Metadata Leakage Profile:
Low when Header Encryption is enabled; encrypts filenames and folder structure
Technical Specifications & Standards
Compression MethodsLZMA, LZMA2, PPMd, BZip2
Encryption AlgorithmAES-256 with SHA-256 key derivation (up to 2^19 iterations)
Max File Size16 Exabytes
Header EncryptionSupported (hides filenames)
Standard Enterprise Use Cases
Encrypted offline cold storageCompressed software source distributionLarge database backups