7zip File: How to Uncompress 7z files on Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora

Question: How do I uncompress a *.7z file ( 7zip file ) in UNIX / Linux ? Can you explain with a simple example?

Answer: Use 7za command to unzip a 7z file ( 7zip file ) on Unix platform as shown below.

Verify whether you have 7za command on your system.

# whereis 7za
7za: /usr/bin/7za /usr/share/man/man1/7za.1.gz

If you don’t have 7za command, install p7zip package as shown below.

Install p7zip to unzip *.7z files on Fedora

# yum install p7zip

Install p7zip to unzip *.7z files on Debian and Ubuntu

$ sudo apt-get install p7zip

Uncompressing a *.7z 7zip files in Linux using 7za

$ 7za e myfiles.7z 

7-Zip (A) 9.04 beta  Copyright (c) 1999-2009 Igor Pavlov  2009-05-30
p7zip Version 9.04 (locale=C,Utf16=off,HugeFiles=on,1 CPU)

Processing archive: ../../myfiles.7z

Extracting  myfiles/test1
Extracting  myfiles/test2
Extracting  myfiles/test
Extracting  myfiles

Everything is Ok

Folders: 1
Files: 3
Size:       7880
Compressed: 404

7za – command name
e – specifies the 7z to be extracted
myfiles.7z – is the file that is to be extracted

Creating a 7zip compression file in Linux

$ 7za a myfiles.7z myfiles/

7-Zip (A) 9.04 beta  Copyright (c) 1999-2009 Igor Pavlov  2009-05-30
p7zip Version 9.04 (locale=C,Utf16=off,HugeFiles=on,1 CPU)
Scanning

Creating archive myfiles.7z

Compressing  myfiles/test1
Compressing  myfiles/test2      

Everything is Ok

Files and sub directories of myfiles/ will be added to the myfiles.7z.

a – add to archive
file.7z – archive file to which these files and dir from dir1 will be added to.

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Tags: 7z Command Line, 7z Download, 7z file extension, 7zip unzip, Unzip 7z file

{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }

1 Rick Stanley April 23, 2010 at 10:53 am: “7zip File: How to Uncompress 7z files on Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora”

This applies to most Distros of Linux. The only difference is the package installation/update system the Distro uses. A better title would be:

“7zip File: How to Uncompress 7z files on Linux”

http://distrowatch.com/
2 shiriy April 23, 2010 at 11:49 am: I use 7z command
3 LHammonds October 28, 2011 at 7:26 pm: It is not a good idea to use 7zip by itself to backup and restore *nix files because it will not retain the owner or group for the files. Instead of using it directly, 1st tar the files into a single archive and then compress the tar with 7zip. Example:

tar -cpf – /home/goober | 7za a -si -mx=9 /tmp/myarchive.tar.7z 1>/dev/null 2>&1
4 Ramachandra November 27, 2011 at 4:46 am: $ sudo apt-get install p7zip-full
should be the command to install p7zip to unzip *.7z files on Ubuntu