 WORK WITH
SUPPORTED
FILE TYPES
Create, open, extract 7Z files
Open and
extract ACE files
Create,
open, extract ARC files
Create,
open, extract Brotli files
Compress,
decompress Bzip2 files
Open and
extract CAB files
Compress,
decompress GZip files
Open and extract
DMG, ISO, UDF disk images
Create,
open, extract PAQ, LPAQ, ZPAQ files
PEA:
Pack Encrypt Authenticate
Open
and extract RAR files
Create, open, extract
TAR, TGZ, TBZ files
Create, open,
extract WIM disk images
Create, open, extract ZIP files
Create,
open, extract ZIPX files
Create,
open, extract
Zstandard files
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Click
on "How to" articles for in-depth mini tutorials about each single
frequently asked topic.
Click back or "FAQ" link in navigation bar to return to Frequently
Asked Questions' table of
contents.
FAQ's "How to" table of contents is sorted in categories:
-
How to perform supported operations (extraction,
creation, editing,
encryption...) for each of most common supported archive type (7Z, ACE,
BR, BZ2, RAR, TAR, ZIP,
ZIPX, ZST...)
-
Features and history
of
most common supported archive formats (7Z, ACE, BR, RAR, TAR, ZIP,
ZIPX, ZST...)
-
Archive manager, common questions about file
compression / file archiving operations and best practices
-
File manager,
documentation about PeaZip's file
browser and file management features
-
Security, all topics related to data security, such
as encryption, secure delete, scanning archives for threats...
-
Tips & tricks, miscellaneous suggestion about
PeaZip and possible applications of functions provided by the program
"Frequently asked questions" section offers syntetic, quick hints about
most common topics
about program's installation, configuration and usage.
For a comprehensive tutorial and online documentation to get further
help (not organized in question-answer form as
in FAQ section), you can refer to "Online support" section.
FAQ: change PeaZip
language and settings
From main menu Options >
Localization you can select the
application's language, read more on PeaZip
Translations page
From Options >
Settings
in main menu you can deeply customize the applications behaviour; see
program's online help file for more
detailed description of available options, like turning on/off
messages, choosing a default archive format, etc...
Hint:
the reset
button
allows to restore default settings; it does not reset bookmarks and
custom editors which have
separare reset.
Setting files can be
reached clicking on the link on the bottom left of
the Settings panel, which represents the configuration's path.
Deleting configuration
files forces PeaZip to rebuild configuration
based on hardcoded defaults; conversely, you can save backup copies of
the configuration files to keep desired settings.
FAQ: what does PeaZip
mean with...
PeaZip introduces
some concepts to improve the way archiving-related tasks are handled,
bridging the gap between GUI and command line based software.
- Save archive layout:
archive layout is
a
list of object scheduled to be archived or extracted.
When creating a new archive or when extracting existing archives, files
and folders can be added to the file archiving or extraction layout
which is
visible on the bottom of the first tab of archiving and extraction
interfaces. Layout can be saved (and edited as a text
file), a saved layout can be added to the
current archiving or extraction layout and PeaZip will take care to
verify if entries
are duplicate and if they accessible. Layouts make easier to define,
merge,
handle, maintain and edit with external tools the lists of object to be
archived or extracted (in example, for backup
or restore purpouse).
- Save task definition
as script: most of the tasks possible to do with PeaZip
can be
exported as a command line in a text file, using Save task definition
buttons in Console tab, both
in file archiving / conversion and in extraction interface (or
 button in task's
window). From the console tab the task can be modified and tested.
Advanced users can use those saved scripts (main menu Tools > Saved task definition scripts points
to the default PeaZip's script directory) to speed up
building scripts, or for learning purpose about the underlying
executables, or for fine-tuning the
task bejond the GUI's capabilities.
- Schedule task definition script:
Schedule tab in archive/conversion and extraction interfaces is
intended as a quick way to schedule a task (in example to automate
backup or
restore) in system's Task scheduler (Microsoft Windows Vista and newer
systems).
- Save task log
Each task launched
by PeaZip run in a separate
PeaLauncher instance. If a task ends in error, or test and list tasks,
the task's window is kept open to let the user inspect and the task log
it generated, and the command behind the job.
FAQ: saved
file compression
settings
PeaZip free archiving utility remembers last used
data compression levels and
compression algorithm
for each format; custom options (where applicable), like passes,
dictionary size etc are remembered only for the current session or
until the compression format is changed.
All those settings can be reset to default using the reset button on
"Options" panel.
Options can be saved to custom compression profile files with Layout
> Save compression settings, to be later used with Layout > Load
compression settings, or to be shared with other users.
FAQ:
console and graphic
modes
PeaZip can also be set to
always keep open the job's window to always let the user inspect the
job log in Options > Settings > General (1) tab
In the same tab tab
it is possible to set
how those applications are presented to the users (binarie user
interface) chosing between 3 alternative modes:
- Console mode
launch applications with their
native
console interface, allowing the user to spare resources and to see the
native text-based progress indicator for each application, which
generally is more reliable and detailed than the graphical one.
- Graphic mode
(default) wraps the job in a graphical
presentation making easier to read and save job log and job definition,
to change underlying process priority, to pause or stop the job and to
open the output path in a click. Optionally at job completion the
window can auto close itself or shut down the system. This is the
default mode for most job types.
- Graphic + console
mode allows to get the best
of the
two modes, with a GUI to control the job and a console window to have a
real-time log of ongoing activity.
FAQ: how
to stop and undo archiving / extraction tasks
You can use "Stop" button in the graphic
wrapper to
stop the underlying
job's process; partial outcome of the task will not be automatically
deleted and will remain available for inspection, as well the job log.
FAQ: manage .7Z, .ACE,
.ARC,
. BR, .BZ2, .CAB, .GZip, .PAQ, .RAR, .TAR, .ZIP, .ZIPX, .ZST files...
PeaZip free archiver utility supports
more than 200 file
archives
extensions, only most common ones
are associated by the installer to the application, but all supported
file types can be opened from PeaZip's file browser.
Some file types are minor variations of most common archive formats
(in example APK, JAR, PAK and many more variants, and COMPOUND, Microsoft
Office and Open
Office file
formats, for structure and supported file compression standards, are
very
similar to zip archives) and
generally can be opened, even when not explicitly supported by PeaZip,
modifying the file extension.
Anyway, in those cases, additional standards may be mandatory
implemented by the format (in example resource's naming conventions,
checksums etc), so if you modify a file opened in that way be sure to
know the specific file format standard.
Hint: a comprehensive online database of file extensions
PeaZip uses Open Source components from 7-Zip/p7zip, FreeArc, and other
state of art Open Source software to offer the same GUI frontend to
create,
browse, test and extract 7z and ZIP archives under Linux and MS Windows
as
well.
PeaZip for Linux/BSD is desktop-neutral so it can be used either under
Gnome or KDE desktop environment, or also other desktop managers.
System integration mechanisms relies on FreeDesktop standards and
requires a compliant environment, such Gnome and KDE, but basic
file archiving operations are not affected.
PeaZip can
- create single or separate archives
- add/remove
files from existing archives
- convert existing archives to another format (in
example
convert a RAR file in a
ZIP or 7Z file)
- extract multiple archives at once
- browse and search archive's content
- preview objects into zip files
- perform partial archive's extraction,
extracting only
selected or filtered objects
For most archive formats,
to extract one or
more files you can alternatively:
- Use context menu entry "Extract here" or
"Extract
here (to new folder)"
- Use context menu entry "Extract..." to be asked
for
output path and other options
- Open the archive in
PeaZip
in PeaZip and use
"Extract" button (you can chose output path, enter password and other
options before confirming with "Ok") to extract selected object, or
Extract > Extract all in application's context menu to extract all
the archive
- Open the archive in
PeaZip
and drag desired objects from the application to the system (the
opposite can be used to add objects to the archive)
- Open the archive in
PeaZip
and
doubleclick on an archived file to preview it
To enter password in PeaZip
click in the locker icon in the status bar
(in the file/archive browser) or the locker icon below output address
field in extraction (decryption)
and archiving (encryption)
interfaces,
or click Tools > Enter
password / keyfile in main menu, or press F9.
Using a Keyfile is optional,
leave it blank if you don't want to rely on two
factor authentication - use of keyfile increases security over password
only encryption since also having access to the keyfile will be
required to perform the extraction, hampering dictionary and social
engineering attacks for password guessing shortcuts.
PeaZip features an encrypted password
manager (Tools > Password manager from main menu) to securely
manage user's passwords.
FAQ: does
PeaZip supports drag and drop?
Drag and drop is
supported on MS Windows systems.
PeaZip can perform drag and drop from
the
system to the
application, for adding files to new archive layout or for
opening existing archives dragged to the application, and drag and drop
from the application to
the system, for file copy and for extraction form archives.
By default the application uses improved native Windows drag and drop
mechanism,
but optionally it can use its own custom drag and drop implementation,
from Options > Settings > General.
Advantage of PeaZip's drag and drop (both types) is that the
application doesn't need to copy
files to system's temporary path on drag&drop operations, speeding
up the operation if large files are involved (especially noticeable
if files are not in the same volume of system's temp directory) and
don't risking to lowen the security of the operation if the system's
temp folder has security policies different from the ones of the
intended output destination.
PeaZip free archiving utility is not yet integrated with Windows drag
and drop's context menu
handler (but it is integrated with rightclick's context menu for
zipping, unzipping and advanced operations).
FAQ: is PeaZip
faster/slower than...
does
it compress
better than... ?
Being PeaZip a frontend application, each time
an archive
is
queried
interprocess communication is involved: if the program / the
input path / the output path is on a slow network or slow unit this may
bring a slowdown.
But most of the time is usually spent on file archiving / extracting
operations; in this case PeaZip is as fast as the invoked application
(7z, which is command line 7-Zip
executable, Paq,
Pea, UPX etc...), which
performance is mainly bound to the algorithm and the data compression
level
involved, being the underlying executables good and efficient
implementations.
See PeaZip compression and
extraction benchmarks page for more information.
PeaZip features extremely fast operations, as tar/untar, split/merge
files, create archives with "store" compression level, quite fast
operations (in example Deflate based algorithms, like in gzip
compression),
slow/quite slow
operations (when bzip2, LZMA, PPMd,
unrar, unace are involved), up to very slow operations when PAQ at
highest compression levels are used.
Currently, fastest
compression (faster than any benchmarked archiver utility) is
attained with Google's Brotli and Facebook's Zstandard algorithms, and best compression ratio
is reached using ZPAQ compression.
A wide range of performances and compression levels can be attained
using PeaZip, the point is in chosing the right balance between the two
factors.
Enforcing data security employing cryptography
raises a little the
computing power usage, but on average compter the impact of this factor
is usually negligible; decryption
of protected archives is usually even
faster than encryption.
FAQ: where does
compressed and
extracted
files go?
By default PeaZip prompts to zip / unzip in
the same
path of the
input object, but in archiving and extraction interfaces the Output
group allows to set the output path.
The button on the right of the output address bar opens a standard
output selection dialog, while on the left the button shows a dropdown
menu allowing to select an output path from various pre-sets: system's
paths (inlcuding: current item's path, the last used path, desktop,
documents etc...), paths of bookmarked elements, and recently visited
paths (paths visited in the current session, and paths of previously
created or extracted archives). From this menu It is also possible to
set a default custom output path.
UPX is the only exception from that mechanism since it always compress
the input executable file in place.
In Options > Settings first tab it is available the option "Open
output path when job completes".
Otherwise iin the same tab is available the PeaLauncher options
dropdown menu: select "Always keep open to inspect job report" to be
able, alongside other features, to click "Open output path" button
after the job is completed - otherwise by default the job's window will
auto close if no error is reported.
FAQ: why the
application
seem
not responding /
is slow on startup?
PeaZip may be
performing
lengthy operations which needs to wait completion; in example PeaZip
may be
querying the archive for browsing (especially when flat mode is used on
archives containing many files) or adding / removing files from
archives (needed time depends on the size of the objects and
compression options), or querying the system about files and folders
to be added to archive layout.
Any time a potentially lengthy operation is requested the cursor is
changed to horglass and, when possible, an animation is performed to
inform the user that the operation is running and is needing some time
to be completed.
On startup, PeaZip query the mounted units, so it can be slowed down
if, in example, the system features remote units over a slow network,
or has
defective drives, or slow removable units (like CD/DVD) are being
loaded in the same time.
Another potential source of slowness, both for PeaZip and underlying
backend processes, may be slowed-down disk subsystem, i.e. by high
degree of fragmentation, or cuncurrent disk usage by
antivirus/antimalware (especially if inspecting program's or work
files), p2p, file indexing programs (like Google Desktop, Picasa etc),
system
updates, paging, etc...
[to run disk-bound speed tests, please take in account that on most
systems files are cached after first usage, so becomes accessible in
less time in following tests]
Some algorithms featured by PeaZip free archiver (PAQ, ARC and 7Z at
highest level of
compression...) requires big amounts of memory, so it is recommended to
avoid extreme settings which results in the system to page to disk,
that is some orders of magnitude slower than RAM.
FAQ: why the progress bar
has
stopped, or
reached the max, and the job is still running?
The graphic progress bar is accurate in
tracking the job
progress form most archive formats (feedback depend on the backend
binary handling the archive), but the native console
mode is more detailed as displays more real time information about the
process.
In Options > Settings first tab, in "Backend binaries interface"
dropdown menu, you can set PeaZip to display both the GUI and
the console window if you want to have both a graphical interface to
control the job and a detailed, real time report on ongoing activities
in the console window.
Running PeaZip
on...
PeaZip 64 bit
free archiver for
Windows is meant to run on 64 bit Microsoft Windows
systems only, while PeaZip
32 bit for Windows is meant to run on any 32 or 64 bit Windows
version and it is now recommended only for legacy systems.
You can check if you are running a 64 bit MS Windows operating system
rightclicking on the "Computer" icon on the desktop and reading the
system type in "Properties".
This program requires full Win32 support, so it is compatible with any
desktop PC and tablet home or professional Microsoft Windows system, or
compatible API (Wine, ReactOS), but it is not officially
supported on Windows RT devices.
Windows 9x and NT4 are no longer supported, starting from release 5.5.2
(2014 12 23) as 7x 9.35 backend requires Windows 2000 or newer system;
last version supporting Windows 9x and NT4 is PeaZip 5.5.1, see older
releases are available here.
To run unattended installation launch the Windows installer with
/SILENT parameter; use /VERYSILENT for background installation, without
notification to the users.
To re-configure system integration (file associations, context and
SendTo menu), you can use Options > System integration.
During install, PeaZip creates entries in SendTo menu that can be
simply copied to one user to another as needed, they are located in
C:\Documents and Settings\(username)\SendTo (Windows XP) or
C:\Users\(username)\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\SendTo (Vista/7),
assuming C as system's disk.
PeaZip can be uninstalled from Add/Remove Programs in system's Control
Panel.
Alternatively you can uninstall it from Start menu PeaZip >
Uninstall PeaZip entry, or running unins000.exe in PeaZip's
installation path.
When uninstalled, PeaZip restores files association with Windows'
Compressed Folders for the supported file types; to restore file
associations with a third party file archiver software please refer to
its own documentation, usually it can be done running the program's
setup package or from the original application itself. To manually
restore file associations with Compressed Folders utility run: cmd /c
assoc .zip=CompressedFolder replacing .zip with any file extension it
is desired to be re-associated.
PeaZip free archiver can be integrated to
Microsoft Windows system in the following ways
- You can rightclick on an object or a group of
objects
and use the PeaZip's entries in context menu or "SendTo" menu to
directly send input
object(s) to a specified PeaZip's function.
- You can drag object(s) on PeaZip's program icon
and
the program will try to decide how to handle the object(s) provided by
the user.
- You can drag objects to an open PeaZip instance
to
put the application in full control of the process
- You can doubleclick on files of types
associated with
PeaZip to open them.
You can reconfigure
the application's system
integration running the configuration tool in Options > System
integration
(which automatically requires administration rights if needed), or
selecting "Custom installation /
Configuration"
in the installer to access to more options.
PeaZip run on any full Win32 Microsoft Windows desktop system (or
compatible, as Wine and ReactOS) for any type of personal computer or
tablet (recent releases GUI is designed to be touch-friendly in terms
of clickable area and functions discoverability), so at current level
of development is not known of being possible to run it on Windows
RT-only devices.
PeaZip is a standalone, almost
self contained zip / unzip application: you can unpack peazip_portable
package
(.tar.gz) in any path and just click on peazip binary; see
FreeDesktop_integration folder in program's path to know how to
integrate PeaZip with the desktop environment (Gnome, KDE...).
Distribution-specific
packages of PeaZip were also built from Linux
communities, and some I'm aware of are linked on PeaZip for Linux
download page too.
If
PeaZip is missing in
your distribution's repositories please take
time to recommend it to distribution's maintainers, pointing them to
this website for evaluating possible advantages in featuring PeaZip
Architectures
supported by PeaZip
On x86-64 systems,
if desired, any 32 bit x86 backend
application
provided by default (for lack of official x86-64 build) can be
replaced with respective 64 bit counterpart, but please remember that
any 32 bit executable
will need ia32-libs to be
installed in order to to run on a 64 bit system.
On ARM systems PeaZip can be compiled as ASM parts featured in some
units for performances, can be replaced by pure Pascal alternative
code, see PeaZip for ARM Linux
for
example.
Widgetsets
PeaZip is meant to be desktop
neutral as possible, so it is not limited to be used under
KDE and Gnome, and does not requires different packages to run on
different desktop environments: cross platform and cross widgetset
application, it
can be compiled for different systems and widgetsets.
Precompiled binaries Linux packages are built for GTK2* and Qt**, which
offers
modern look and feel and very functional system dialogs.
PeaZip Portable for Linux can be used as alternative to native packages
on BSD systems, due to binary compatibility provided by BSD systems to
Linux executables.
PeaZip Portable for BSD contains natively compiled (i386, GTK2) peazip,
pea, pealauncher, and p7zip executables, providing most of the
program's funtions are performed by native binaries, for other
backends, Linux binaries are used.
Many other operating systems and widgetsets are supported by Lazarus,
the IDE used for
PeaZip's development, including GTK1, WindCE, fpGUI and Carbon.
If
you want to compile PeaZip from sources see notes for developers on PeaZip sources page.
* On some Linux distributions the GTK2
version may require to install some components of gtk/gdk
libraries, like libgdk_pixbuf,
those components are quite common and can be usually found in
repositories of each distribution.
** Qt widgetset packages
requires Qt
4.5 or
more recent, and needs libQt4Pas.so
installed in /usr/local/lib or equivalent directory (copy the
file and run ldconfig; it is done automatically in installable
packages), such as
/usr/lib or /usr/lib32 on some 64 bit distributions.
A copy of
libQt4Pas.so is available in PeaZip's directory,
./usr/local/share/PeaZip/ for the installable packages.
If the Qt version
does not start on some systems, as some system's visual styles may
cause recursive repainting error, you can fix the problem starting it
in a console (or script) as: peazip -style=cleanlooks
How do I make my
system aware of
PeaZip
functionalities?
PeaZip installable packages authomatically create application's icon,
list PeaZip in available applications and create some KDE ServiceMenu
entries to reach most used program's functions (archive, open, extract
here, extract to new folder).
FreeDesktop_integration folder (featured both in installable and in
standalone versions) contains .desktop files and simple instructions to
add PeaZip to start menus and context menus of desktop environments
following the FreeDesktop standards (like Gnome and KDE), and Nautilus
scripts folder which can be manually copied to user's Nautilus script's
folder
to add PeaZip's functionalities to Gnome's
context menu.
What if I cannot run
PeaZip due
to unresolved
dependencies.
If the system report missing libraries the first time you are running
PeaZip binary, you can generally find missing libraries on your
installation media or you can search them online using your
installation or update manager,
or even in a web based .rpm or .deb repository; generally missing
libraries are standard, well known and widely available gtk/gkd
components (the most common is libgdk_pixbuf library).
If a package does not run
on a specific system
please launch peazip
binary on a console to get a more detailed error report.
What
are hardware/software prerequisites?
PeaZip should run on x86-compatible CPU due to some performance
critical sections written in ASM, but pure Pascal replacements exists
for those units, allowing to port PeaZip to other architectures (i.e.
ARM).
CPU and, mainly, RAM requisites are
bound top the chosen algorithm and compression level, ranging to few KB
for simpler algorithms (like when storing files without compression in
tar/gz/zip formats) to above than a GB for most powerful and complex
algorithms at highest compression level, like LZMA, PPMd and PAQ).
Needless to say, it is the choice of the file compression algorithm the
most
important factor in determination of job's speed, even if usually the
most advanced algorithms are also the ones which scales better in
performances in multicore enviroments.
As for software prerequisites, all needed software invoked by the
frontend is included in PeaZip packages (being available under suitable
licenses, as open source or royalty free) so no custom package is
needed to be installed to make PeaZip work (with the possible exception
of some standard gtk/gdk related libraries needed to run PeaZip,
PeaLauncher and Pea binaries, which may miss in some system, but are
well known,
trustable and widely available).
If you don't want non open source software in your system, like
unrar.so (which brings specific license restrictions about reverse
engineering) or unace binary (closed source, royalty free), you simply
need to delete them from /res/ path in program's folder.
PeaZip archive manager for Linux
is available for x86_64 architecture, and PeaZip for Linux x86 packages are
available for legacy / reduced resources systems. If you are interested
in ARM / aarch64 architecture porting (including
support
for Google Android / ChromeOS) you can refer to Linux for ARM page.
PeaZip Portable for BSD
contains natively compiled peazip, pea,
pealauncher, and p7zip executables, providing most of the program's
funtions are performed by native binaries.
For other backends, Linux binaries are used due to binary compatibility
provided by BSD systems to Linux executables.
It is a Portable version of PeaZip, that means no installation is
required: the Portable application is autocontained, so the software
can be unpacked and used starting peazip executable, see next paragraph
for more information.
BSD binaries are precompiled for i386 and GTK2; ia-32 libs needs to be
installed in ia64 systems.
Apple macOS / OSX /
Darwin
PeaZip can be built from sources, with Lazarus IDE 2.2RC
or more
recent, as native application for
Darwin / macOS, both for Intel x86-64 CPU (OSX up to macOS 10.15
Catalina), and for Apple Silicon M1 aarch64 ARM SoC (for macOS 11 Big
Sur and more revent systems), targeting Cocoa widgetset in both cases.
Official binary macOS DMG packages are now available for download on PeaZip for macOS page.
PeaZip Portable file archiver
is available either for Microsoft Windows, BSD, Linux, and macOS (on
respective download pages, for non-Windows versions): it does not
require installation / unistallation and does
not modify your system so it is recommended if you want to test
the
application, to run it from a removable device, to make it available
over the network avoiding local installations, or if you should not
modify host system (i.e. library freeze in production machines).
To use the program simply unzip the package where you like, i.e to a
removable device, to bring the application with you, or to a network
path, to share the application with other users, or just to the desktop.
To remove the program simply delete PeaZip's directory.
PeaZip Portable packages for Windows has a dedicated download page,
while PeaZip Portable for Linux packages are available on download
pages for Linux for each supported architecture (x86_64, x86,
ARM/aarch64).
Due the unique macOS app structure, all PeaZip packages form macOS can
be either installed (peazip app dragged into macOS Applications folder)
or used "as is" as Portable packages, simply opening the DMG package
and running peazip app.
Synopsis: How to use
PeaZip, frequently asked questions, FAQ section. Supported operating
systems, Apple macOS, BSD, Darwin, Linux, Windows.
Topics: PeaZip FAQ,
frequently asked questions, questions and answers
PeaZip > FAQ, how to
use PeaZip
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