---
layout: page
category-page: intermediate
category-title: Intermediate commands
tags: compress archive extract
author: Andrea Brites Marto
title: 7z
next-page: pages/cmd/interm/apropos.html
---
<p>
A .7z. file is an archive format that stands for 7-zip. By default, Mac OS X does not
know how to handle these files, but that is not a big deal because you can download for
free in App Store. The program supports 7z, ZIP, CAB, ARJ, BZIP2, TAR, CPIO, RPM and DEB.<br>

So, first of all, you need to download Unarchiver in order to use this command.<br>

The basic syntax is:
</p>
<pre>
7z [adeltux] [-] [SWITCH] <code>&lt;ARCHIVE_NAME&gt; &lt;ARGUMENTS&gt;</code>
</pre>

Here some useful options that we will use to explain some examples:

<ul>
    <li><i>a</i> Add</li>
    <li><i>d</i> Delete</li>
    <li><i>e</i> Extract</li>
    <li><i>l</i> List</li>
    <li><i>t</i> Test</li>
    <li><i>u</i> Update</li>
    <li><i>x</i> Extract with full paths</li>
</ul>

The simplest way to use <code>7z</code> if we want to extracts all files
from archive archive.zip to the current directory.

<pre>
7z e archive.zip
</pre>

<p>Well, now we talk about the switches.
There are many type of switches, we will see the most common ones.</p>

<h3>-m (Set compression Method)</h3>

<p>Specifies the compression method</p>

<pre>
-m&lt;method_parameters&gt;
</pre>

The format for this switch depends on the archive type which are:
<ul>
    <li>Zip</li>
    <li>GZip</li>
    <li>BZip2</li>
    <li>7z</li>
    <li>XZ</li>
    <li>WIM</li>
</ul>

<h3>-r (Recurse subdirectories) switch</h3>

<p>Specifies the method of treating filenames or wildcards on the command line.</p>
The syntax:

<pre>
-r[- | 0]
</pre>

<table>
    <tr>
        <td>Switch</td>
        <td>Description</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>-r</td>
        <td>Enable recurse subdirectories</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>-r-</td>
        <td>Disable recurse subdirectories. This is the default option.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>-r0</td>
        <td> Enable recurse subdirectories only for wildcard names </td>
    </tr>
</table>

<p>
If we want to list all *.doc files that belong to the archived root directory in
the <i>archive.zip</i> archive, we can do as follows:
</p>

<pre>
7z l archive.zip *.doc -r-
</pre>

<h3>-p (Set password) switch</h3>

<p>Specifies a password</p>
Here the syntax is very simple:

<pre>
-p{password}
</pre>

If we want to protect some files we can compress for example all *.txt files
to archive.7z using a password as "cimbale".

<pre>
7z a archive.7z -p cimbale
</pre>

Then if we want to extracts all files from archive.7z we need the password "cimbale".

<pre>
7z x archive.7z -p cimbale
</pre>

<h3>-x (Exclude filenames) switch </h3>

<p>
Specifes which filenames or wildcards must be excluded from the operation.
</p>

Syntax:

<pre>
-x[&lt;recurse_type&gt;]&lt;file_ref&gt;
</pre>

Sometimes we need to add files into an archive.7z, except one, this can be done as fllows:

<pre>
7z a -tzip archive.7z *.txt -x!temp.*
</pre>

<p>We described the most important swtiches and uses of this command, but there are more.</p>