List of archive formats


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

Archiving">File archiver">Archiving only

Compression only

Archiving and compression

Data recovery

Comparison

Containers and compression

FormatFilename
extension		Created
by		Introduced inBased onCompressionIntegrity checkRecovery recordEncryption supportedUnicode filenamesModification date resolutionPre-processingLicense
Archive .a,.arCSRG1971Original1 s
cpio.cpioBell Labs1983 Unix System V, select formats only1 s
Shell Archive .shar,.runJames Gosling, Alan Hewett1994 4.4BSDOriginal, commonly MD5arbitrary
Tape Archive .tarBell Labs1975 Version 6 Unix, metadata only. Full integrity providable by filters such as gzip.1 s
Extended TAR format .tarOpenGroup2001Sun proposal + TARmetadataarbitrary
BagIt–The Library of Congress2007file system
7z.7zIgor Pavlov2000LZMA, LZMA2, Bzip2, PPMd, DEFLATE,
CRC32		,
AES-256		100 ns
ACE.aceMarcel Lemke1998LZ77, Blowfish2s
AFA.afaVicente Sánchez-Alarcos2009Original, AES and CAST
ARC.arcThom Henderson 19852s
ARJ.arjRobert Jung1991AR001 and AR002
B1.b1Catalina Group Ltd2011LZMA, AES
Cabinet.cabMicrosoft1992 Windows 3.1DEFLATE PKCS7 Authenticode signature 2 s
Compact File Set.cfsJoe Lowe 2008ZIP/LZMA
Compact Pro.cptBill Goodman1990 Original
Disk Archive .darDenis Corbin2002Original1 µs
DGCA.dgcShin-ichi Tsuruta2001GCA
FreeArc.arcBulat Ziganshin2006LZMA, PPMd, TTA, AES, Blowfish, Twofish and Serpent
LHA .lzh,.lhaHaruyasu Yoshizaki1988FrozenOnly on recent LHA releases1–2 s
LZX.lzxJonathan Forbes and Tomi Poutanen1995LZ77Only on recent LZX releases
ISO image.iso,.img,.imaISO 96601988High Sierra Format
SparkFS.arcDavid Pilling1989
WinMount format.mou?2007?
Macintosh Disk Image.dmgApple Computer2001 Mac OS XOriginal
Partition Image .partimgFrançois Dupoux and Franck Ladurelle2000
PAQ Family .paq#*,.lpaq#*Matt Mahoney2002–2006Original
PEA.peaGiorgio Tani2006Original, Deflate based compression Adler32, CRC32, CRC64, MD5, SHA1, RIPEMD-160, SHA256, SHA512, Whirlpool Authenticated Encryption, AES128 and AES256 in EAX mode system dependent arbitrary
PIM.pimIlia Muraviev2004–2008Original
Quadruple D.qdaTaku Hayase 1997
RAR.rarEugene Roshal1993Original,
CRC32,
BLAKE2		,
Reed–Solomon		,
AES-256 for RAR 5.0 archives		,
UTF-8		2 s, 1 s, 6.5536 ms, 25.6 µs or 100 ns
RK.rkM Software, Ltd.2004Original, AES, Square, Twofish1 s
NuFX.shkAndy Nicholas1989Original1 s
StuffIt .sitRaymond Lau1987
StuffIt X .sitxAladdin/Allume Systems2002, RC4,Blowfish,
AES,DES
UltraCompressor II.uc.uc0.uc2
.ucn.ur2.ue2		Nico de Vries1992–1996LZ77 and Huffman coding, triple DES?
Windows Image.wim,.swm,.esdMicrosoft2006Original100 ns
ZIP.zipPhil Katz1989DEFLATE, AES1–2 s, depending on version
ZPAQ.zpaqMatt Mahoney2009PAQ, SHA-1, AES-256

Software packaging and distribution

FormatFilename
extension		Created
by		Introduced inBased onIntegrity checkRecovery recordEncryption supportedUnicode filenamesModification date resolution
Debian package .debDebian1994 Debian 0.91ar, tar, and gzip1 s
Macintosh Installer.pkg,.mpkg NeXT1989 NeXTSTEP 1.0pax and gzip
RPM Package Manager .rpmRed Hat1995 Red Hat Linux 1.0cpio and gzip1 s
Slackware Package.tgzPatrick Volkerding1993 Slackware 1.0tar and gzip
Windows Installer .msiMicrosoft2000 Windows 2000OLE Structured Storage, Cabinet and SQL PKCS7 Authenticode Signature2 s
Java Archive .jarSun Microsystems1997 JDK 1.1PKZIP
Google Chrome extension package.crxGoogle2009 Zip
Pacman.pkg.tar.zst,.pkg.tar Judd Vinet2001 tar and zstd 1 s

Features

Footnotes