File Archivers

I searched for a thread dedicated to file archivers, but I couldn't find one.
So, this thread is dedicated to all things about file archivers.

There are numerous file archivers available for use in Windows. Some are free, and some not.
The two file archivers that I always install are WinRAR and 7-Zip.
I use WinRAR most of the time, but when I'm looking for more compression to produce a smaller file size, I use 7-Zip.

What is your preferred file archiver?
Do you use a third party file archiver or just the built-in Windows functionality?

For reference, here is a list of file archivers compiled by Wikipedia.

I use WinRAR and 7zip as well ^_^

I have switched to the Nanazip for 5 reasons:

1. It was the first one to support Windows 11's context menu.
2. 7-zip stable had not updated for years, it does now, but slowly.
3. It is within the store, so it auto updates itself (via winget as well).
4. It is basically just 7-zip with the new name, so it is like using 7zip.
5. Encryption, since file encryption software is virtually nonexistent.

7zip

Stigg said:

I searched for a thread dedicated to file archivers, but I couldn't find one.
So, this thread is dedicated to all things about file archivers.

There are numerous file archivers available for use in Windows. Some are free, and some not.
The two file archivers that I always install are WinRAR and 7-Zip.
I use WinRAR most of the time, but when I'm looking for more compression to produce a smaller file size, I use 7-Zip.

What is your preferred file archiver?
Do you use a third party file archiver or just the built-in Windows functionality?

For reference, here is a list of file archivers compiled by Wikipedia.

Comparison of file archivers - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Click to expand...

For creating archives, Windows is fine. For unarchiving files, it is fine for most, but sometimes you need to use say 7 zip. I tend to install whatever too I need and then uninstall it afterwards. These tools tend to clutter up context menus.

More accurately, I create an incremental backup using paid version of Reflect, install the unarchiver, do the job (unarchiving to my data drive), the restore the incremental backup.

This is better (imo) than straight install/uninstall as it totally eliminates all the garbage of hangovers of the archivers in explorer context menus etc.
It is always a good plant to make a backup first, and then it only takes about a minute to restore such an incremental on paid version of Reflect due to Rapid Delta Restore.

Incidentally, I use (paid) version of Peflect for archiving files and folders if I need to compress data for my backup purposes. I use windows zip functionality, if I am sending data to others.

It has been years since I used self extracting archives - if emailing them, most firewalls/email systems just bounce them.

I use 7zip, but I'm going to give Nanazip a try as per @TairikuOkami's suggestion.

There are numerous archiving apps in the Windows Store.
A lot of them get bad reviews and don't appear to offer anything more than what I'm using now. In fact, they offer less.

@TairikuOkami Nanazip may be the best of the Windows Store archivers. And as you said, it's a fork of 7-Zip.
The only thing with open source forks, you never know how long it will be supported.

I use 7-zip too. Never had a need that 7-zip couldn't solve. I don't mind the bare bones appearance as long as it is fully functional.

I do quite a bit of research to find the best app for my requirements, and then keep it installed. I find it foolish to install/ uninstall apps that I use frequently.

PeaZip Portable, when I need it.

I use 7-Zip installed in the default location .

My computer is a "desktop". The C (SSD) drive uses Bitlocker, and my D "data" (HHD) drive uses one of the 3rd party encryption programs. There is also another HHD that holds my backups.

Some of my files are backed up one for one to the backup drive like music and photos, but my personal "data" and the Appdata/Roaming folder are also copied to the backup drive as they are written, but ENCRYPTED.

There is a great program called CryptSync that is easy to use. You point to a folder you want to copy from (my data and Appdata/Roaming) and tell it where you want to copy it to and specify a password. CryptSync will monitor those folders and copy and encrypt those folders to the destination. It is basically a shell for 7-Zip and was designed to monitor certain folders and make secure versions before they are backed up to the cloud, but I use it to copy to my backup drive .

CryptSync works fairly seamlessly and fast. If the original drive fails, I now have a backup on the backup drive (but it is encrypted) and just reinstall CryptSync and do a one time reverse of the procedure. Without my passwords, no one will be able to access my working or backed up data.

CryptSync keeps the folder structure and you can not only encrypt the files, but the file names too. (I don't in case I want to recover just one file). You can also tell it to use the extension .7zip or .cryptsync. I use the latter as it may not be so obvious if someone was trying figure out how to open them.

If you back up files to a drive or the cloud, I recommend this program.

7-Zip 23.01 Released (June 20, 2023)
Changelog | Download Page

WinRAR 6.22 Released (May 30, 2023)
Changelog | Download Page

I have both WinRAR and 7-Zip installed.
I use WinRAR the most, so it's the default. But when I need better compression, I use 7-Zip.

But I got sick of the juvenile looking 7-Zip icons, so I'm currently using the Glyfz 2016 theme.
There are plenty of other good themes available.

Using 7-zip only, it has all the functions I ever needed.
Biggest plus is that it can open any archive and it's free.

zebal said:

Using 7-zip only, it has all the functions I ever needed.
Biggest plus is that it can open any archive and it's free.

Click to expand...

Yeah, it can open a lot of archives.

7zip is all that I have used for years and years and years.

New user here. I still have Win10, but this is a command line question. I tried sending an email to WinRAR support but it failed. Hopefully someone knows! Thanks in advance for any help. Here's the original message I sent to WinRAR:

I have numerous files grouped in alphabetical subfolders in one main folder. for example:

C:\Main_Folder\Individual_Folders\

Each of those folders gets individually RAR'd and stored in a separate backup folder.

C:\Backup_Folders\

To update them, I use the Windows version of WinRAR and do the following:

1. Right click on the source folder in C:\Main_Folder\Individual_Folders\.
2. WinRAR > Add to archive...
3. Browse to and select the existing archive to update in C:\Backup_Folders\.
4. Change the Update Mode to Skip Existing Files
5. Click OK.

That works perfectly, every time.

What I'd like to do is be able to create a batch file to do this for me, as there are 29 separate folders, and, well you know - I'm lazy. :)

In trying to figure this out myself, I checked all the command line options and switches, and this was the best I could find:

f (Freshen files) unfortunately, it doesn't add new files.
u (Update files) I don't want to "Add and update"

then I found the -o- switch. but that didn't work either, even after trying a, f and u, hoping at least ONE of them would work!

I've Googled everywhere to try and find a solution, but found nothing.

I really really hope you can help! I could easily just re-archive them each time, but even with my fast computer and SSD drives, it still takes close to an hour and I have to do each one manually.

Thank you!

WinRAR For me

WinRAR 6.23​

WinRAR 6.23 changelog:

Added extraction of XZ archives utilizing ARM64 filter.
Rar$LS* temporary files, created when extracting or testing multiple archives from Windows context menu, are now deleted immediately. Previously they were deleted only on next WinRAR runs and only if they were at least 1 hour old.

Bugs fixed:

a security issue involving out of bounds write is fixed in RAR4 recovery volumes processing code. We are thankful to goodbyeselene working with Trend Micro Zero Day Initiative for letting us know about this bug;
WinRAR could start a wrong file after a user double clicked an item in a specially crafted archive. We are thankful to Andrey Polovinkin from Group-IB Threat Intelligence unit for letting us know about this bug;
if both NTFS and Unix time extra fields were available for a file in ZIP archive, extraction command ignored the second extra field even if it provided more time fields than first one;
interface themes were applied to archive icons even if "Apply to archive icons" option in "Organize themes" dialog was turned off.

Hi folks
I think -- although I assume the OP means "Compressing files" that archiving is a whole different topic - It's possible you might have 80GB of files you want "archived" and saved to external storage for example -- manually compressing them individually with 7-zip etc is IMO far too much work if you have loads of files and loads of sub-directories -- you really need some sort of Windows equivalent to GRSYNC (Gui version of rsync) that can recursively navigate through entire top level and sub directory lists even from a root directory say D:\ and all the the sub directories and files files within them to create an output that preserves the directory and file names.


For individual files .zip seems to be the most universal format although things like lsx compression etc are used too -- rar and unrar are usually best avoided as a many of these files come from torrent sites with some "not nice payloads" in them and a lot of A/V software doesn't detect viruses in these files.

For audio you've got .mp3, .M4a, .flac etc. Archiving really is a whole different ballgame to compressing files and individual directories.

Cheers
jimbo