Manual: zip
ZIP(1) General Commands Manual ZIP(1)
NAME
zip - package and compress (archive) files
SYNOPSIS
zip [-aABcdDeEfFghjklLmoqrRSTuvVwXyz!@$] [--longoption ...] [-b path] [-n suffixes] [-t date] [-tt date] [zipfile
[file ...]] [-xi list]
zipcloak (see separate man page)
zipnote (see separate man page)
zipsplit (see separate man page)
Note: Command line processing in zip has been changed to support long options and handle all options and arguments
more consistently. Some old command lines that depend on command line inconsistencies may no longer work.
DESCRIPTION
zip is a compression and file packaging utility for Unix, VMS, MSDOS, OS/2, Windows 9x/NT/XP, Minix, Atari, Macin‐
tosh, Amiga, and Acorn RISC OS. It is analogous to a combination of the Unix commands tar(1) and compress(1) and is
compatible with PKZIP (Phil Katz's ZIP for MSDOS systems).
A companion program (unzip(1)) unpacks zip archives. The zip and unzip(1) programs can work with archives produced
by PKZIP (supporting most PKZIP features up to PKZIP version 4.6), and PKZIP and PKUNZIP can work with archives pro‐
duced by zip (with some exceptions, notably streamed archives, but recent changes in the zip file standard may facil‐
itate better compatibility). zip version 3.0 is compatible with PKZIP 2.04 and also supports the Zip64 extensions of
PKZIP 4.5 which allow archives as well as files to exceed the previous 2 GB limit (4 GB in some cases). zip also now
supports bzip2 compression if the bzip2 library is included when zip is compiled. Note that PKUNZIP 1.10 cannot ex‐
tract files produced by PKZIP 2.04 or zip 3.0. You must use PKUNZIP 2.04g or unzip 5.0p1 (or later versions) to ex‐
tract them.
See the EXAMPLES section at the bottom of this page for examples of some typical uses of zip.
Large Archives and Zip64. zip automatically uses the Zip64 extensions when files larger than 4 GB are added to an
archive, an archive containing Zip64 entries is updated (if the resulting archive still needs Zip64), the size of the
archive will exceed 4 GB, or when the number of entries in the archive will exceed about 64K. Zip64 is also used for
archives streamed from standard input as the size of such archives are not known in advance, but the option -fz- can
be used to force zip to create PKZIP 2 compatible archives (as long as Zip64 extensions are not needed). You must
use a PKZIP 4.5 compatible unzip, such as unzip 6.0 or later, to extract files using the Zip64 extensions.
In addition, streamed archives, entries encrypted with standard encryption, or split archives created with the pause
option may not be compatible with PKZIP as data descriptors are used and PKZIP at the time of this writing does not
support data descriptors (but recent changes in the PKWare published zip standard now include some support for the
data descriptor format zip uses).
Mac OS X. Though previous Mac versions had their own zip port, zip supports Mac OS X as part of the Unix port and
most Unix features apply. References to "MacOS" below generally refer to MacOS versions older than OS X. Support
for some Mac OS features in the Unix Mac OS X port, such as resource forks, is expected in the next zip release.
For a brief help on zip and unzip, run each without specifying any parameters on the command line.
USE
The program is useful for packaging a set of files for distribution; for archiving files; and for saving disk space
by temporarily compressing unused files or directories.
The zip program puts one or more compressed files into a single zip archive, along with information about the files
(name, path, date, time of last modification, protection, and check information to verify file integrity). An entire
directory structure can be packed into a zip archive with a single command. Compression ratios of 2:1 to 3:1 are
common for text files. zip has one compression method (deflation) and can also store files without compression. (If
bzip2 support is added, zip can also compress using bzip2 compression, but such entries require a reasonably modern
unzip to decompress. When bzip2 compression is selected, it replaces deflation as the default method.) zip automat‐
ically chooses the better of the two (deflation or store or, if bzip2 is selected, bzip2 or store) for each file to
be compressed.
Command format. The basic command format is
zip options archive inpath inpath ...
where archive is a new or existing zip archive and inpath is a directory or file path optionally including wildcards.
When given the name of an existing zip archive, zip will replace identically named entries in the zip archive (match‐
ing the relative names as stored in the archive) or add entries for new names. For example, if foo.zip exists and
contains foo/file1 and foo/file2, and the directory foo contains the files foo/file1 and foo/file3, then:
zip -r foo.zip foo
or more concisely
zip -r foo foo
will replace foo/file1 in foo.zip and add foo/file3 to foo.zip. After this, foo.zip contains foo/file1, foo/file2,
and foo/file3, with foo/file2 unchanged from before.
So if before the zip command is executed foo.zip has:
foo/file1 foo/file2
and directory foo has:
file1 file3
then foo.zip will have:
foo/file1 foo/file2 foo/file3
where foo/file1 is replaced and foo/file3 is new.
-@ file lists. If a file list is specified as -@ [Not on MacOS], zip takes the list of input files from standard in‐
put instead of from the command line. For example,
zip -@ foo
will store the files listed one per line on stdin in foo.zip.
Under Unix, this option can be used to powerful effect in conjunction with the find (1) command. For example, to
archive all the C source files in the current directory and its subdirectories:
find . -name "*.[ch]" -print | zip source -@
(note that the pattern must be quoted to keep the shell from expanding it).
Streaming input and output. zip will also accept a single dash ("-") as the zip file name, in which case it will
write the zip file to standard output, allowing the output to be piped to another program. For example:
zip -r - . | dd of=/dev/nrst0 obs=16k
would write the zip output directly to a tape with the specified block size for the purpose of backing up the current
directory.
zip also accepts a single dash ("-") as the name of a file to be compressed, in which case it will read the file from
standard input, allowing zip to take input from another program. For example:
tar cf - . | zip backup -
would compress the output of the tar command for the purpose of backing up the current directory. This generally pro‐
duces better compression than the previous example using the -r option because zip can take advantage of redundancy
between files. The backup can be restored using the command
unzip -p backup | tar xf -
When no zip file name is given and stdout is not a terminal, zip acts as a filter, compressing standard input to
standard output. For example,
tar cf - . | zip | dd of=/dev/nrst0 obs=16k
is equivalent to
tar cf - . | zip - - | dd of=/dev/nrst0 obs=16k
zip archives created in this manner can be extracted with the program funzip which is provided in the unzip package,
or by gunzip which is provided in the gzip package (but some gunzip may not support this if zip used the Zip64 exten‐
sions). For example:
dd if=/dev/nrst0 ibs=16k | funzip | tar xvf -
The stream can also be saved to a file and unzip used.
If Zip64 support for large files and archives is enabled and zip is used as a filter, zip creates a Zip64 archive
that requires a PKZIP 4.5 or later compatible unzip to read it. This is to avoid ambiguities in the zip file struc‐
ture as defined in the current zip standard (PKWARE AppNote) where the decision to use Zip64 needs to be made before
data is written for the entry, but for a stream the size of the data is not known at that point. If the data is
known to be smaller than 4 GB, the option -fz- can be used to prevent use of Zip64, but zip will exit with an error
if Zip64 was in fact needed. zip 3 and unzip 6 and later can read archives with Zip64 entries. Also, zip removes
the Zip64 extensions if not needed when archive entries are copied (see the -U (--copy) option).
When directing the output to another file, note that all options should be before the redirection including -x. For
example:
zip archive "*.h" "*.c" -x donotinclude.h orthis.h > tofile
Zip files. When changing an existing zip archive, zip will write a temporary file with the new contents, and only
replace the old one when the process of creating the new version has been completed without error.
If the name of the zip archive does not contain an extension, the extension .zip is added. If the name already con‐
tains an extension other than .zip, the existing extension is kept unchanged. However, split archives (archives
split over multiple files) require the .zip extension on the last split.
Scanning and reading files. When zip starts, it scans for files to process (if needed). If this scan takes longer
than about 5 seconds, zip will display a "Scanning files" message and start displaying progress dots every 2 seconds
or every so many entries processed, whichever takes longer. If there is more than 2 seconds between dots it could
indicate that finding each file is taking time and could mean a slow network connection for example. (Actually the
initial file scan is a two-step process where the directory scan is followed by a sort and these two steps are sepa‐
rated with a space in the dots. If updating an existing archive, a space also appears between the existing file scan
and the new file scan.) The scanning files dots are not controlled by the -ds dot size option, but the dots are
turned off by the -q quiet option. The -sf show files option can be used to scan for files and get the list of files
scanned without actually processing them.
If zip is not able to read a file, it issues a warning but continues. See the -MM option below for more on how zip
handles patterns that are not matched and files that are not readable. If some files were skipped, a warning is is‐
sued at the end of the zip operation noting how many files were read and how many skipped.
Command modes. zip now supports two distinct types of command modes, external and internal. The external modes
(add, update, and freshen) read files from the file system (as well as from an existing archive) while the internal
modes (delete and copy) operate exclusively on entries in an existing archive.
add
Update existing entries and add new files. If the archive does not exist create it. This is the default
mode.
update (-u)
Update existing entries if newer on the file system and add new files. If the archive does not exist issue
warning then create a new archive.
freshen (-f)
Update existing entries of an archive if newer on the file system. Does not add new files to the archive.
delete (-d)
Select entries in an existing archive and delete them.
copy (-U)
Select entries in an existing archive and copy them to a new archive. This new mode is similar to update but
command line patterns select entries in the existing archive rather than files from the file system and it
uses the --out option to write the resulting archive to a new file rather than update the existing archive,
leaving the original archive unchanged.
The new File Sync option (-FS) is also considered a new mode, though it is similar to update. This mode synchronizes
the archive with the files on the OS, only replacing files in the archive if the file time or size of the OS file is
different, adding new files, and deleting entries from the archive where there is no matching file. As this mode can
delete entries from the archive, consider making a backup copy of the archive.
Also see -DF for creating difference archives.
See each option description below for details and the EXAMPLES section below for examples.
Split archives. zip version 3.0 and later can create split archives. A split archive is a standard zip archive
split over multiple files. (Note that split archives are not just archives split in to pieces, as the offsets of en‐
tries are now based on the start of each split. Concatenating the pieces together will invalidate these offsets, but
unzip can usually deal with it. zip will usually refuse to process such a spliced archive unless the -FF fix option
is used to fix the offsets.)
One use of split archives is storing a large archive on multiple removable media. For a split archive with 20 split
files the files are typically named (replace ARCHIVE with the name of your archive) ARCHIVE.z01, ARCHIVE.z02, ...,
ARCHIVE.z19, ARCHIVE.zip. Note that the last file is the .zip file. In contrast, spanned archives are the original
multi-disk archive generally requiring floppy disks and using volume labels to store disk numbers. zip supports
split archives but not spanned archives, though a procedure exists for converting split archives of the right size to
spanned archives. The reverse is also true, where each file of a spanned archive can be copied in order to files
with the above names to create a split archive.
Use -s to set the split size and create a split archive. The size is given as a number followed optionally by one of
k (kB), m (MB), g (GB), or t (TB) (the default is m). The -sp option can be used to pause zip between splits to al‐
low changing removable media, for example, but read the descriptions and warnings for both -s and -sp below.
Though zip does not update split archives, zip provides the new option -O (--output-file or --out) to allow split
archives to be updated and saved in a new archive. For example,
zip inarchive.zip foo.c bar.c --out outarchive.zip
reads archive inarchive.zip, even if split, adds the files foo.c and bar.c, and writes the resulting archive to out‐
archive.zip. If inarchive.zip is split then outarchive.zip defaults to the same split size. Be aware that if out‐
archive.zip and any split files that are created with it already exist, these are always overwritten as needed with‐
out warning. This may be changed in the future.
Unicode. Though the zip standard requires storing paths in an archive using a specific character set, in practice
zips have stored paths in archives in whatever the local character set is. This creates problems when an archive is
created or updated on a system using one character set and then extracted on another system using a different charac‐
ter set. When compiled with Unicode support enabled on platforms that support wide characters, zip now stores, in
addition to the standard local path for backward compatibility, the UTF-8 translation of the path. This provides a
common universal character set for storing paths that allows these paths to be fully extracted on other systems that
support Unicode and to match as close as possible on systems that don't.
On Win32 systems where paths are internally stored as Unicode but represented in the local character set, it's possi‐
ble that some paths will be skipped during a local character set directory scan. zip with Unicode support now can
read and store these paths. Note that Win 9x systems and FAT file systems don't fully support Unicode.
Be aware that console windows on Win32 and Unix, for example, sometimes don't accurately show all characters due to
how each operating system switches in character sets for display. However, directory navigation tools should show
the correct paths if the needed fonts are loaded.
Command line format. This version of zip has updated command line processing and support for long options.
Short options take the form
-s[-][s[-]...][value][=value][ value]
where s is a one or two character short option. A short option that takes a value is last in an argument and any‐
thing after it is taken as the value. If the option can be negated and "-" immediately follows the option, the op‐
tion is negated. Short options can also be given as separate arguments
-s[-][value][=value][ value] -s[-][value][=value][ value] ...
Short options in general take values either as part of the same argument or as the following argument. An optional =
is also supported. So
-ttmmddyyyy
and
-tt=mmddyyyy
and
-tt mmddyyyy
all work. The -x and -i options accept lists of values and use a slightly different format described below. See the
-x and -i options.
Long options take the form
--longoption[-][=value][ value]
where the option starts with --, has a multicharacter name, can include a trailing dash to negate the option (if the
option supports it), and can have a value (option argument) specified by preceding it with = (no spaces). Values can
also follow the argument. So
--before-date=mmddyyyy
and
--before-date mmddyyyy
both work.
Long option names can be shortened to the shortest unique abbreviation. See the option descriptions below for which
support long options. To avoid confusion, avoid abbreviating a negatable option with an embedded dash ("-") at the
dash if you plan to negate it (the parser would consider a trailing dash, such as for the option --some-option using
--some- as the option, as part of the name rather than a negating dash). This may be changed to force the last dash
in --some- to be negating in the future.
OPTIONS
-a
--ascii
[Systems using EBCDIC] Translate file to ASCII format.
-A
--adjust-sfx
Adjust self-extracting executable archive. A self-extracting executable archive is created by prepending the
SFX stub to an existing archive. The -A option tells zip to adjust the entry offsets stored in the archive to
take into account this "preamble" data.
Note: self-extracting archives for the Amiga are a special case. At present, only the Amiga port of zip is capable
of adjusting or updating these without corrupting them. -J can be used to remove the SFX stub if other updates need
to be made.
-AC
--archive-clear
[WIN32] Once archive is created (and tested if -T is used, which is recommended), clear the archive bits of
files processed. WARNING: Once the bits are cleared they are cleared. You may want to use the -sf show files
option to store the list of files processed in case the archive operation must be repeated. Also consider us‐
ing the -MM must match option. Be sure to check out -DF as a possibly better way to do incremental backups.
-AS
--archive-set
[WIN32] Only include files that have the archive bit set. Directories are not stored when -AS is used,
though by default the paths of entries, including directories, are stored as usual and can be used by most un‐
zips to recreate directories.
The archive bit is set by the operating system when a file is modified and, if used with -AC, -AS can provide
an incremental backup capability. However, other applications can modify the archive bit and it may not be a
reliable indicator of which files have changed since the last archive operation. Alternative ways to create
incremental backups are using -t to use file dates, though this won't catch old files copied to directories
being archived, and -DF to create a differential archive.
-B
--binary
[VM/CMS and MVS] force file to be read binary (default is text).
-Bn [TANDEM] set Edit/Enscribe formatting options with n defined as
bit 0: Don't add delimiter (Edit/Enscribe)
bit 1: Use LF rather than CR/LF as delimiter (Edit/Enscribe)
bit 2: Space fill record to maximum record length (Enscribe)
bit 3: Trim trailing space (Enscribe)
bit 8: Force 30K (Expand) large read for unstructured files
-b path
--temp-path path
Use the specified path for the temporary zip archive. For example:
zip -b /tmp stuff *
will put the temporary zip archive in the directory /tmp, copying over stuff.zip to the current directory when
done. This option is useful when updating an existing archive and the file system containing this old archive
does not have enough space to hold both old and new archives at the same time. It may also be useful when
streaming in some cases to avoid the need for data descriptors. Note that using this option may require zip
take additional time to copy the archive file when done to the destination file system.
-c
--entry-comments
Add one-line comments for each file. File operations (adding, updating) are done first, and the user is then
prompted for a one-line comment for each file. Enter the comment followed by return, or just return for no
comment.
-C
--preserve-case
[VMS] Preserve case all on VMS. Negating this option (-C-) downcases.
-C2
--preserve-case-2
[VMS] Preserve case ODS2 on VMS. Negating this option (-C2-) downcases.
-C5
--preserve-case-5
[VMS] Preserve case ODS5 on VMS. Negating this option (-C5-) downcases.
-d
--delete
Remove (delete) entries from a zip archive. For example:
zip -d foo foo/tom/junk foo/harry/\* \*.o
will remove the entry foo/tom/junk, all of the files that start with foo/harry/, and all of the files that end
with .o (in any path). Note that shell pathname expansion has been inhibited with backslashes, so that zip
can see the asterisks, enabling zip to match on the contents of the zip archive instead of the contents of the
current directory. (The backslashes are not used on MSDOS-based platforms.) Can also use quotes to escape
the asterisks as in
zip -d foo foo/tom/junk "foo/harry/*" "*.o"
Not escaping the asterisks on a system where the shell expands wildcards could result in the asterisks being
converted to a list of files in the current directory and that list used to delete entries from the archive.
Under MSDOS, -d is case sensitive when it matches names in the zip archive. This requires that file names be
entered in upper case if they were zipped by PKZIP on an MSDOS system. (We considered making this case insen‐
sitive on systems where paths were case insensitive, but it is possible the archive came from a system where
case does matter and the archive could include both Bar and bar as separate files in the archive.) But see
the new option -ic to ignore case in the archive.
-db
--display-bytes
Display running byte counts showing the bytes zipped and the bytes to go.
-dc
--display-counts
Display running count of entries zipped and entries to go.
-dd
--display-dots
Display dots while each entry is zipped (except on ports that have their own progress indicator). See -ds be‐
low for setting dot size. The default is a dot every 10 MB of input file processed. The -v option also dis‐
plays dots (previously at a much higher rate than this but now -v also defaults to 10 MB) and this rate is
also controlled by -ds.
-df
--datafork
[MacOS] Include only data-fork of files zipped into the archive. Good for exporting files to foreign operat‐
ing-systems. Resource-forks will be ignored at all.
-dg
--display-globaldots
Display progress dots for the archive instead of for each file. The command
zip -qdgds 10m
will turn off most output except dots every 10 MB.
-ds size
--dot-size size
Set amount of input file processed for each dot displayed. See -dd to enable displaying dots. Setting this
option implies -dd. Size is in the format nm where n is a number and m is a multiplier. Currently m can be k
(KB), m (MB), g (GB), or t (TB), so if n is 100 and m is k, size would be 100k which is 100 KB. The default
is 10 MB.
The -v option also displays dots and now defaults to 10 MB also. This rate is also controlled by this option.
A size of 0 turns dots off.
This option does not control the dots from the "Scanning files" message as zip scans for input files. The dot
size for that is fixed at 2 seconds or a fixed number of entries, whichever is longer.
-du
--display-usize
Display the uncompressed size of each entry.
-dv
--display-volume
Display the volume (disk) number each entry is being read from, if reading an existing archive, and being
written to.
-D
--no-dir-entries
Do not create entries in the zip archive for directories. Directory entries are created by default so that
their attributes can be saved in the zip archive. The environment variable ZIPOPT can be used to change the
default options. For example under Unix with sh:
ZIPOPT="-D"; export ZIPOPT
(The variable ZIPOPT can be used for any option, including -i and -x using a new option format detailed below,
and can include several options.) The option -D is a shorthand for -x "*/" but the latter previously could not
be set as default in the ZIPOPT environment variable as the contents of ZIPOPT gets inserted near the begin‐
ning of the command line and the file list had to end at the end of the line.
This version of zip does allow -x and -i options in ZIPOPT if the form
-x file file ... @
is used, where the @ (an argument that is just @) terminates the list.
-DF
--difference-archive
Create an archive that contains all new and changed files since the original archive was created. For this to
work, the input file list and current directory must be the same as during the original zip operation.
For example, if the existing archive was created using
zip -r foofull .
from the bar directory, then the command
zip -r foofull . -DF --out foonew
also from the bar directory creates the archive foonew with just the files not in foofull and the files where
the size or file time of the files do not match those in foofull.
Note that the timezone environment variable TZ should be set according to the local timezone in order for this
option to work correctly. A change in timezone since the original archive was created could result in no
times matching and all files being included.
A possible approach to backing up a directory might be to create a normal archive of the contents of the di‐
rectory as a full backup, then use this option to create incremental backups.
-e
--encrypt
Encrypt the contents of the zip archive using a password which is entered on the terminal in response to a
prompt (this will not be echoed; if standard error is not a tty, zip will exit with an error). The password
prompt is repeated to save the user from typing errors.
-E
--longnames
[OS/2] Use the .LONGNAME Extended Attribute (if found) as filename.
-f
--freshen
Replace (freshen) an existing entry in the zip archive only if it has been modified more recently than the
version already in the zip archive; unlike the update option (-u) this will not add files that are not already
in the zip archive. For example:
zip -f foo
This command should be run from the same directory from which the original zip command was run, since paths
stored in zip archives are always relative.
Note that the timezone environment variable TZ should be set according to the local timezone in order for the
-f, -u and -o options to work correctly.
The reasons behind this are somewhat subtle but have to do with the differences between the Unix-format file
times (always in GMT) and most of the other operating systems (always local time) and the necessity to compare
the two. A typical TZ value is ``MET-1MEST'' (Middle European time with automatic adjustment for ``summer‐
time'' or Daylight Savings Time).
The format is TTThhDDD, where TTT is the time zone such as MET, hh is the difference between GMT and local
time such as -1 above, and DDD is the time zone when daylight savings time is in effect. Leave off the DDD if
there is no daylight savings time. For the US Eastern time zone EST5EDT.
-F
--fix
-FF
--fixfix
Fix the zip archive. The -F option can be used if some portions of the archive are missing, but requires a
reasonably intact central directory. The input archive is scanned as usual, but zip will ignore some prob‐
lems. The resulting archive should be valid, but any inconsistent entries will be left out.
When doubled as in -FF, the archive is scanned from the beginning and zip scans for special signatures to
identify the limits between the archive members. The single -F is more reliable if the archive is not too much
damaged, so try this option first.
If the archive is too damaged or the end has been truncated, you must use -FF. This is a change from
zip 2.32, where the -F option is able to read a truncated archive. The -F option now more reliably fixes
archives with minor damage and the -FF option is needed to fix archives where -F might have been sufficient
before.
Neither option will recover archives that have been incorrectly transferred in ascii mode instead of binary.
After the repair, the -t option of unzip may show that some files have a bad CRC. Such files cannot be recov‐
ered; you can remove them from the archive using the -d option of zip.
Note that -FF may have trouble fixing archives that include an embedded zip archive that was stored (without
compression) in the archive and, depending on the damage, it may find the entries in the embedded archive
rather than the archive itself. Try -F first as it does not have this problem.
The format of the fix commands have changed. For example, to fix the damaged archive foo.zip,
zip -F foo --out foofix
tries to read the entries normally, copying good entries to the new archive foofix.zip. If this doesn't work,
as when the archive is truncated, or if some entries you know are in the archive are missed, then try
zip -FF foo --out foofixfix
and compare the resulting archive to the archive created by -F. The -FF option may create an inconsistent
archive. Depending on what is damaged, you can then use the -F option to fix that archive.
A split archive with missing split files can be fixed using -F if you have the last split of the archive (the
.zip file). If this file is missing, you must use -FF to fix the archive, which will prompt you for the
splits you have.
Currently the fix options can't recover entries that have a bad checksum or are otherwise damaged.
-FI
--fifo [Unix] Normally zip skips reading any FIFOs (named pipes) encountered, as zip can hang if the FIFO is not be‐
ing fed. This option tells zip to read the contents of any FIFO it finds.
-FS
--filesync
Synchronize the contents of an archive with the files on the OS. Normally when an archive is updated, new
files are added and changed files are updated but files that no longer exist on the OS are not deleted from
the archive. This option enables a new mode that checks entries in the archive against the file system. If
the file time and file size of the entry matches that of the OS file, the entry is copied from the old archive
instead of being read from the file system and compressed. If the OS file has changed, the entry is read and
compressed as usual. If the entry in the archive does not match a file on the OS, the entry is deleted. En‐
abling this option should create archives that are the same as new archives, but since existing entries are
copied instead of compressed, updating an existing archive with -FS can be much faster than creating a new
archive. Also consider using -u for updating an archive.
For this option to work, the archive should be updated from the same directory it was created in so the rela‐
tive paths match. If few files are being copied from the old archive, it may be faster to create a new
archive instead.
Note that the timezone environment variable TZ should be set according to the local timezone in order for this
option to work correctly. A change in timezone since the original archive was created could result in no
times matching and recompression of all files.
This option deletes files from the archive. If you need to preserve the original archive, make a copy of the
archive first or use the --out option to output the updated archive to a new file. Even though it may be
slower, creating a new archive with a new archive name is safer, avoids mismatches between archive and OS
paths, and is preferred.
-g
--grow
Grow (append to) the specified zip archive, instead of creating a new one. If this operation fails, zip at‐
tempts to restore the archive to its original state. If the restoration fails, the archive might become cor‐
rupted. This option is ignored when there's no existing archive or when at least one archive member must be
updated or deleted.
-h
-?
--help
Display the zip help information (this also appears if zip is run with no arguments).
-h2
--more-help
Display extended help including more on command line format, pattern matching, and more obscure options.
-i files
--include files
Include only the specified files, as in:
zip -r foo . -i \*.c
which will include only the files that end in .c in the current directory and its subdirectories. (Note for
PKZIP users: the equivalent command is
pkzip -rP foo *.c
PKZIP does not allow recursion in directories other than the current one.) The backslash avoids the shell
filename substitution, so that the name matching is performed by zip at all directory levels. [This is for
Unix and other systems where \ escapes the next character. For other systems where the shell does not
process * do not use \ and the above is
zip -r foo . -i *.c
Examples are for Unix unless otherwise specified.] So to include dir, a directory directly under the current
directory, use
zip -r foo . -i dir/\*
or
zip -r foo . -i "dir/*"
to match paths such as dir/a and dir/b/file.c [on ports without wildcard expansion in the shell such as MSDOS
and Windows
zip -r foo . -i dir/*
is used.] Note that currently the trailing / is needed for directories (as in
zip -r foo . -i dir/
to include directory dir).
The long option form of the first example is
zip -r foo . --include \*.c
and does the same thing as the short option form.
Though the command syntax used to require -i at the end of the command line, this version actually allows -i
(or --include) anywhere. The list of files terminates at the next argument starting with -, the end of the
command line, or the list terminator @ (an argument that is just @). So the above can be given as
zip -i \*.c @ -r foo .
for example. There must be a space between the option and the first file of a list. For just one file you
can use the single value form
zip -i\*.c -r foo .
(no space between option and value) or
zip --include=\*.c -r foo .
as additional examples. The single value forms are not recommended because they can be confusing and, in par‐
ticular, the -ifile format can cause problems if the first letter of file combines with i to form a two-letter
option starting with i. Use -sc to see how your command line will be parsed.
Also possible:
zip -r foo . -i@include.lst
which will only include the files in the current directory and its subdirectories that match the patterns in
the file include.lst.
Files to -i and -x are patterns matching internal archive paths. See -R for more on patterns.
-I
--no-image
[Acorn RISC OS] Don't scan through Image files. When used, zip will not consider Image files (eg. DOS parti‐
tions or Spark archives when SparkFS is loaded) as directories but will store them as single files.
For example, if you have SparkFS loaded, zipping a Spark archive will result in a zipfile containing a direc‐
tory (and its content) while using the 'I' option will result in a zipfile containing a Spark archive. Obvi‐
ously this second case will also be obtained (without the 'I' option) if SparkFS isn't loaded.
-ic
--ignore-case
[VMS, WIN32] Ignore case when matching archive entries. This option is only available on systems where the
case of files is ignored. On systems with case-insensitive file systems, case is normally ignored when match‐
ing files on the file system but is not ignored for -f (freshen), -d (delete), -U (copy), and similar modes
when matching against archive entries (currently -f ignores case on VMS) because archive entries can be from
systems where case does matter and names that are the same except for case can exist in an archive. The -ic
option makes all matching case insensitive. This can result in multiple archive entries matching a command
line pattern.
-j
--junk-paths
Store just the name of a saved file (junk the path), and do not store directory names. By default, zip will
store the full path (relative to the current directory).
-jj
--absolute-path
[MacOS] record Fullpath (+ Volname). The complete path including volume will be stored. By default the rela‐
tive path will be stored.
-J
--junk-sfx
Strip any prepended data (e.g. a SFX stub) from the archive.
-k
--DOS-names
Attempt to convert the names and paths to conform to MSDOS, store only the MSDOS attribute (just the user
write attribute from Unix), and mark the entry as made under MSDOS (even though it was not); for compatibility
with PKUNZIP under MSDOS which cannot handle certain names such as those with two dots.
-l
--to-crlf
Translate the Unix end-of-line character LF into the MSDOS convention CR LF. This option should not be used on
binary files. This option can be used on Unix if the zip file is intended for PKUNZIP under MSDOS. If the in‐
put files already contain CR LF, this option adds an extra CR. This is to ensure that unzip -a on Unix will
get back an exact copy of the original file, to undo the effect of zip -l. See -ll for how binary files are
handled.
-la
--log-append
Append to existing logfile. Default is to overwrite.
-lf logfilepath
--logfile-path logfilepath
Open a logfile at the given path. By default any existing file at that location is overwritten, but the -la
option will result in an existing file being opened and the new log information appended to any existing in‐
formation. Only warnings and errors are written to the log unless the -li option is also given, then all in‐
formation messages are also written to the log.
-li
--log-info
Include information messages, such as file names being zipped, in the log. The default is to only include the
command line, any warnings and errors, and the final status.
-ll
--from-crlf
Translate the MSDOS end-of-line CR LF into Unix LF. This option should not be used on binary files. This op‐
tion can be used on MSDOS if the zip file is intended for unzip under Unix. If the file is converted and the
file is later determined to be binary a warning is issued and the file is probably corrupted. In this release
if -ll detects binary in the first buffer read from a file, zip now issues a warning and skips line end con‐
version on the file. This check seems to catch all binary files tested, but the original check remains and if
a converted file is later determined to be binary that warning is still issued. A new algorithm is now being
used for binary detection that should allow line end conversion of text files in UTF-8 and similar encodings.
-L
--license
Display the zip license.
-m
--move
Move the specified files into the zip archive; actually, this deletes the target directories/files after mak‐
ing the specified zip archive. If a directory becomes empty after removal of the files, the directory is also
removed. No deletions are done until zip has created the archive without error. This is useful for conserving
disk space, but is potentially dangerous so it is recommended to use it in combination with -T to test the
archive before removing all input files.
-MM
--must-match
All input patterns must match at least one file and all input files found must be readable. Normally when an
input pattern does not match a file the "name not matched" warning is issued and when an input file has been
found but later is missing or not readable a missing or not readable warning is issued. In either case zip
continues creating the archive, with missing or unreadable new files being skipped and files already in the
archive remaining unchanged. After the archive is created, if any files were not readable zip returns the
OPEN error code (18 on most systems) instead of the normal success return (0 on most systems). With -MM set,
zip exits as soon as an input pattern is not matched (whenever the "name not matched" warning would be issued)
or when an input file is not readable. In either case zip exits with an OPEN error and no archive is created.
This option is useful when a known list of files is to be zipped so any missing or unreadable files will re‐
sult in an error. It is less useful when used with wildcards, but zip will still exit with an error if any
input pattern doesn't match at least one file and if any matched files are unreadable. If you want to create
the archive anyway and only need to know if files were skipped, don't use -MM and just check the return code.
Also -lf could be useful.
-n suffixes
--suffixes suffixes
Do not attempt to compress files named with the given suffixes. Such files are simply stored (0% compression)
in the output zip file, so that zip doesn't waste its time trying to compress them. The suffixes are sepa‐
rated by either colons or semicolons. For example:
zip -rn .Z:.zip:.tiff:.gif:.snd foo foo
will copy everything from foo into foo.zip, but will store any files that end in .Z, .zip, .tiff, .gif, or
.snd without trying to compress them (image and sound files often have their own specialized compression meth‐
ods). By default, zip does not compress files with extensions in the list .Z:.zip:.zoo:.arc:.lzh:.arj. Such
files are stored directly in the output archive. The environment variable ZIPOPT can be used to change the
default options. For example under Unix with csh:
setenv ZIPOPT "-n .gif:.zip"
To attempt compression on all files, use:
zip -n : foo
The maximum compression option -9 also attempts compression on all files regardless of extension.
On Acorn RISC OS systems the suffixes are actually filetypes (3 hex digit format). By default, zip does not
compress files with filetypes in the list DDC:D96:68E (i.e. Archives, CFS files and PackDir files).
-nw
--no-wild
Do not perform internal wildcard processing (shell processing of wildcards is still done by the shell unless
the arguments are escaped). Useful if a list of paths is being read and no wildcard substitution is desired.
-N
--notes
[Amiga, MacOS] Save Amiga or MacOS filenotes as zipfile comments. They can be restored by using the -N option
of unzip. If -c is used also, you are prompted for comments only for those files that do not have filenotes.
-o
--latest-time
Set the "last modified" time of the zip archive to the latest (oldest) "last modified" time found among the
entries in the zip archive. This can be used without any other operations, if desired. For example:
zip -o foo
will change the last modified time of foo.zip to the latest time of the entries in foo.zip.
-O output-file
--output-file output-file
Process the archive changes as usual, but instead of updating the existing archive, output the new archive to
output-file. Useful for updating an archive without changing the existing archive and the input archive must
be a different file than the output archive.
This option can be used to create updated split archives. It can also be used with -U to copy entries from an
existing archive to a new archive. See the EXAMPLES section below.
Another use is converting zip files from one split size to another. For instance, to convert an archive with
700 MB CD splits to one with 2 GB DVD splits, can use:
zip -s 2g cd-split.zip --out dvd-split.zip
which uses copy mode. See -U below. Also:
zip -s 0 split.zip --out unsplit.zip
will convert a split archive to a single-file archive.
Copy mode will convert stream entries (using data descriptors and which should be compatible with most unzips)
to normal entries (which should be compatible with all unzips), except if standard encryption was used. For
archives with encrypted entries, zipcloak will decrypt the entries and convert them to normal entries.
-p
--paths
Include relative file paths as part of the names of files stored in the archive. This is the default. The -j
option junks the paths and just stores the names of the files.
-P password
--password password
Use password to encrypt zipfile entries (if any). THIS IS INSECURE! Many multi-user operating systems pro‐
vide ways for any user to see the current command line of any other user; even on stand-alone systems there is
always the threat of over-the-shoulder peeking. Storing the plaintext password as part of a command line in
an automated script is even worse. Whenever possible, use the non-echoing, interactive prompt to enter pass‐
words. (And where security is truly important, use strong encryption such as Pretty Good Privacy instead of
the relatively weak standard encryption provided by zipfile utilities.)
-q
--quiet
Quiet mode; eliminate informational messages and comment prompts. (Useful, for example, in shell scripts and
background tasks).
-Qn
--Q-flag n
[QDOS] store information about the file in the file header with n defined as
bit 0: Don't add headers for any file
bit 1: Add headers for all files
bit 2: Don't wait for interactive key press on exit
-r
--recurse-paths
Travel the directory structure recursively; for example:
zip -r foo.zip foo
or more concisely
zip -r foo foo
In this case, all the files and directories in foo are saved in a zip archive named foo.zip, including files
with names starting with ".", since the recursion does not use the shell's file-name substitution mechanism.
If you wish to include only a specific subset of the files in directory foo and its subdirectories, use the -i
option to specify the pattern of files to be included. You should not use -r with the name ".*", since that
matches ".." which will attempt to zip up the parent directory (probably not what was intended).
Multiple source directories are allowed as in
zip -r foo foo1 foo2
which first zips up foo1 and then foo2, going down each directory.
Note that while wildcards to -r are typically resolved while recursing down directories in the file system,
any -R, -x, and -i wildcards are applied to internal archive pathnames once the directories are scanned. To
have wildcards apply to files in subdirectories when recursing on Unix and similar systems where the shell
does wildcard substitution, either escape all wildcards or put all arguments with wildcards in quotes. This
lets zip see the wildcards and match files in subdirectories using them as it recurses.
-R
--recurse-patterns
Travel the directory structure recursively starting at the current directory; for example:
zip -R foo "*.c"
In this case, all the files matching *.c in the tree starting at the current directory are stored into a zip
archive named foo.zip. Note that *.c will match file.c, a/file.c and a/b/.c. More than one pattern can be
listed as separate arguments. Note for PKZIP users: the equivalent command is
pkzip -rP foo *.c
Patterns are relative file paths as they appear in the archive, or will after zipping, and can have optional
wildcards in them. For example, given the current directory is foo and under it are directories foo1 and foo2
and in foo1 is the file bar.c,
zip -R foo/*
will zip up foo, foo/foo1, foo/foo1/bar.c, and foo/foo2.
zip -R */bar.c
will zip up foo/foo1/bar.c. See the note for -r on escaping wildcards.
-RE
--regex
[WIN32] Before zip 3.0, regular expression list matching was enabled by default on Windows platforms. Be‐
cause of confusion resulting from the need to escape "[" and "]" in names, it is now off by default for Win‐
dows so "[" and "]" are just normal characters in names. This option enables [] matching again.
-s splitsize
--split-size splitsize
Enable creating a split archive and set the split size. A split archive is an archive that could be split
over many files. As the archive is created, if the size of the archive reaches the specified split size, that
split is closed and the next split opened. In general all splits but the last will be the split size and the
last will be whatever is left. If the entire archive is smaller than the split size a single-file archive is
created.
Split archives are stored in numbered files. For example, if the output archive is named archive and three
splits are required, the resulting archive will be in the three files archive.z01, archive.z02, and
archive.zip. Do not change the numbering of these files or the archive will not be readable as these are used
to determine the order the splits are read.
Split size is a number optionally followed by a multiplier. Currently the number must be an integer. The
multiplier can currently be one of k (kilobytes), m (megabytes), g (gigabytes), or t (terabytes). As 64k is
the minimum split size, numbers without multipliers default to megabytes. For example, to create a split
archive called foo with the contents of the bar directory with splits of 670 MB that might be useful for burn‐
ing on CDs, the command:
zip -s 670m -r foo bar
could be used.
Currently the old splits of a split archive are not excluded from a new archive, but they can be specifically
excluded. If possible, keep the input and output archives out of the path being zipped when creating split
archives.
Using -s without -sp as above creates all the splits where foo is being written, in this case the current di‐
rectory. This split mode updates the splits as the archive is being created, requiring all splits to remain
writable, but creates split archives that are readable by any unzip that supports split archives. See -sp be‐
low for enabling split pause mode which allows splits to be written directly to removable media.
The option -sv can be used to enable verbose splitting and provide details of how the splitting is being done.
The -sb option can be used to ring the bell when zip pauses for the next split destination.
Split archives cannot be updated, but see the -O (--out) option for how a split archive can be updated as it
is copied to a new archive. A split archive can also be converted into a single-file archive using a split
size of 0 or negating the -s option:
zip -s 0 split.zip --out single.zip
Also see -U (--copy) for more on using copy mode.
-sb
--split-bell
If splitting and using split pause mode, ring the bell when zip pauses for each split destination.
-sc
--show-command
Show the command line starting zip as processed and exit. The new command parser permutes the arguments,
putting all options and any values associated with them before any non-option arguments. This allows an op‐
tion to appear anywhere in the command line as long as any values that go with the option go with it. This
option displays the command line as zip sees it, including any arguments from the environment such as from the
ZIPOPT variable. Where allowed, options later in the command line can override options earlier in the command
line.
-sf
--show-files
Show the files that would be operated on, then exit. For instance, if creating a new archive, this will list
the files that would be added. If the option is negated, -sf-, output only to an open log file. Screen dis‐
play is not recommended for large lists.
-so
--show-options
Show all available options supported by zip as compiled on the current system. As this command reads the op‐
tion table, it should include all options. Each line includes the short option (if defined), the long option
(if defined), the format of any value that goes with the option, if the option can be negated, and a small de‐
scription. The value format can be no value, required value, optional value, single character value, number
value, or a list of values. The output of this option is not intended to show how to use any option but only
show what options are available.
-sp
--split-pause
If splitting is enabled with -s, enable split pause mode. This creates split archives as -s does, but stream
writing is used so each split can be closed as soon as it is written and zip will pause between each split to
allow changing split destination or media.
Though this split mode allows writing splits directly to removable media, it uses stream archive format that
may not be readable by some unzips. Before relying on splits created with -sp, test a split archive with the
unzip you will be using.
To convert a stream split archive (created with -sp) to a standard archive see the --out option.
-su
--show-unicode
As -sf, but also show Unicode version of the path if exists.
-sU
--show-just-unicode
As -sf, but only show Unicode version of the path if exists, otherwise show the standard version of the path.
-sv
--split-verbose
Enable various verbose messages while splitting, showing how the splitting is being done.
-S
--system-hidden
[MSDOS, OS/2, WIN32 and ATARI] Include system and hidden files.
[MacOS] Includes finder invisible files, which are ignored otherwise.
-t mmddyyyy
--from-date mmddyyyy
Do not operate on files modified prior to the specified date, where mm is the month (00-12), dd is the day of
the month (01-31), and yyyy is the year. The ISO 8601 date format yyyy-mm-dd is also accepted. For example:
zip -rt 12071991 infamy foo
zip -rt 1991-12-07 infamy foo
will add all the files in foo and its subdirectories that were last modified on or after 7 December 1991, to
the zip archive infamy.zip.
-tt mmddyyyy
--before-date mmddyyyy
Do not operate on files modified after or at the specified date, where mm is the month (00-12), dd is the day
of the month (01-31), and yyyy is the year. The ISO 8601 date format yyyy-mm-dd is also accepted. For exam‐
ple:
zip -rtt 11301995 infamy foo
zip -rtt 1995-11-30 infamy foo
will add all the files in foo and its subdirectories that were last modified before 30 November 1995, to the
zip archive infamy.zip.
-T
--test
Test the integrity of the new zip file. If the check fails, the old zip file is unchanged and (with the -m op‐
tion) no input files are removed.
-TT cmd
--unzip-command cmd
Use command cmd instead of 'unzip -tqq' to test an archive when the -T option is used. On Unix, to use a copy
of unzip in the current directory instead of the standard system unzip, could use:
zip archive file1 file2 -T -TT "./unzip -tqq"
In cmd, {} is replaced by the name of the temporary archive, otherwise the name of the archive is appended to
the end of the command. The return code is checked for success (0 on Unix).
-u
--update
Replace (update) an existing entry in the zip archive only if it has been modified more recently than the ver‐
sion already in the zip archive. For example:
zip -u stuff *
will add any new files in the current directory, and update any files which have been modified since the zip
archive stuff.zip was last created/modified (note that zip will not try to pack stuff.zip into itself when you
do this).
Note that the -u option with no input file arguments acts like the -f (freshen) option.
-U
--copy-entries
Copy entries from one archive to another. Requires the --out option to specify a different output file than
the input archive. Copy mode is the reverse of -d delete. When delete is being used with --out, the selected
entries are deleted from the archive and all other entries are copied to the new archive, while copy mode se‐
lects the files to include in the new archive. Unlike -u update, input patterns on the command line are
matched against archive entries only and not the file system files. For instance,
zip inarchive "*.c" --copy --out outarchive
copies entries with names ending in .c from inarchive to outarchive. The wildcard must be escaped on some
systems to prevent the shell from substituting names of files from the file system which may have no relevance
to the entries in the archive.
If no input files appear on the command line and --out is used, copy mode is assumed:
zip inarchive --out outarchive
This is useful for changing split size for instance. Encrypting and decrypting entries is not yet supported
using copy mode. Use zipcloak for that.
-UN v
--unicode v
Determine what zip should do with Unicode file names. zip 3.0, in addition to the standard file path, now in‐
cludes the UTF-8 translation of the path if the entry path is not entirely 7-bit ASCII. When an entry is
missing the Unicode path, zip reverts back to the standard file path. The problem with using the standard
path is this path is in the local character set of the zip that created the entry, which may contain charac‐
ters that are not valid in the character set being used by the unzip. When zip is reading an archive, if an
entry also has a Unicode path, zip now defaults to using the Unicode path to recreate the standard path using
the current local character set.
This option can be used to determine what zip should do with this path if there is a mismatch between the
stored standard path and the stored UTF-8 path (which can happen if the standard path was updated). In all
cases, if there is a mismatch it is assumed that the standard path is more current and zip uses that. Values
for v are
q - quit if paths do not match
w - warn, continue with standard path
i - ignore, continue with standard path
n - no Unicode, do not use Unicode paths
The default is to warn and continue.
Characters that are not valid in the current character set are escaped as #Uxxxx and #Lxxxxxx, where x is an
ASCII character for a hex digit. The first is used if a 16-bit character number is sufficient to represent
the Unicode character and the second if the character needs more than 16 bits to represent it's Unicode char‐
acter code. Setting -UN to
e - escape
as in
zip archive -sU -UN=e
forces zip to escape all characters that are not printable 7-bit ASCII.
Normally zip stores UTF-8 directly in the standard path field on systems where UTF-8 is the current character
set and stores the UTF-8 in the new extra fields otherwise. The option
u - UTF-8
as in
zip archive dir -r -UN=UTF8
forces zip to store UTF-8 as native in the archive. Note that storing UTF-8 directly is the default on Unix
systems that support it. This option could be useful on Windows systems where the escaped path is too large
to be a valid path and the UTF-8 version of the path is smaller, but native UTF-8 is not backward compatible
on Windows systems.
-v
--verbose
Verbose mode or print diagnostic version info.
Normally, when applied to real operations, this option enables the display of a progress indicator during com‐
pression (see -dd for more on dots) and requests verbose diagnostic info about zipfile structure oddities.
However, when -v is the only command line argument a diagnostic screen is printed instead. This should now
work even if stdout is redirected to a file, allowing easy saving of the information for sending with bug re‐
ports to Info-ZIP. The version screen provides the help screen header with program name, version, and release
date, some pointers to the Info-ZIP home and distribution sites, and shows information about the target envi‐
ronment (compiler type and version, OS version, compilation date and the enabled optional features used to
create the zip executable).
-V
--VMS-portable
[VMS] Save VMS file attributes. (Files are truncated at EOF.) When a -V archive is unpacked on a non-VMS
system, some file types (notably Stream_LF text files and pure binary files like fixed-512) should be ex‐
tracted intact. Indexed files and file types with embedded record sizes (notably variable-length record
types) will probably be seen as corrupt elsewhere.
-VV
--VMS-specific
[VMS] Save VMS file attributes, and all allocated blocks in a file, including any data beyond EOF. Useful
for moving ill-formed files among VMS systems. When a -VV archive is unpacked on a non-VMS system, almost
all files will appear corrupt.
-w
--VMS-versions
[VMS] Append the version number of the files to the name, including multiple versions of files. Default is to
use only the most recent version of a specified file.
-ww
--VMS-dot-versions
[VMS] Append the version number of the files to the name, including multiple versions of files, using the .nnn
format. Default is to use only the most recent version of a specified file.
-ws
--wild-stop-dirs
Wildcards match only at a directory level. Normally zip handles paths as strings and given the paths
/foo/bar/dir/file1.c
/foo/bar/file2.c
an input pattern such as
/foo/bar/*
normally would match both paths, the * matching dir/file1.c and file2.c. Note that in the first case a direc‐
tory boundary (/) was crossed in the match. With -ws no directory bounds will be included in the match, mak‐
ing wildcards local to a specific directory level. So, with -ws enabled, only the second path would be
matched.
When using -ws, use ** to match across directory boundaries as * does normally.
-x files
--exclude files
Explicitly exclude the specified files, as in:
zip -r foo foo -x \*.o
which will include the contents of foo in foo.zip while excluding all the files that end in .o. The backslash
avoids the shell filename substitution, so that the name matching is performed by zip at all directory levels.
Also possible:
zip -r foo foo -x@exclude.lst
which will include the contents of foo in foo.zip while excluding all the files that match the patterns in the
file exclude.lst.
The long option forms of the above are
zip -r foo foo --exclude \*.o
and
zip -r foo foo --exclude @exclude.lst
Multiple patterns can be specified, as in:
zip -r foo foo -x \*.o \*.c
If there is no space between -x and the pattern, just one value is assumed (no list):
zip -r foo foo -x\*.o
See -i for more on include and exclude.
-X
--no-extra
Do not save extra file attributes (Extended Attributes on OS/2, uid/gid and file times on Unix). The zip for‐
mat uses extra fields to include additional information for each entry. Some extra fields are specific to
particular systems while others are applicable to all systems. Normally when zip reads entries from an exist‐
ing archive, it reads the extra fields it knows, strips the rest, and adds the extra fields applicable to that
system. With -X, zip strips all old fields and only includes the Unicode and Zip64 extra fields (currently
these two extra fields cannot be disabled).
Negating this option, -X-, includes all the default extra fields, but also copies over any unrecognized extra
fields.
-y
--symlinks
For UNIX and VMS (V8.3 and later), store symbolic links as such in the zip archive, instead of compressing and
storing the file referred to by the link. This can avoid multiple copies of files being included in the
archive as zip recurses the directory trees and accesses files directly and by links.
-z
--archive-comment
Prompt for a multi-line comment for the entire zip archive. The comment is ended by a line containing just a
period, or an end of file condition (^D on Unix, ^Z on MSDOS, OS/2, and VMS). The comment can be taken from a
file:
zip -z foo < foowhat
-Z cm
--compression-method cm
Set the default compression method. Currently the main methods supported by zip are store and deflate. Com‐
pression method can be set to:
store - Setting the compression method to store forces zip to store entries with no compression. This is gen‐
erally faster than compressing entries, but results in no space savings. This is the same as using -0 (com‐
pression level zero).
deflate - This is the default method for zip. If zip determines that storing is better than deflation, the
entry will be stored instead.
bzip2 - If bzip2 support is compiled in, this compression method also becomes available. Only some modern un‐
zips currently support the bzip2 compression method, so test the unzip you will be using before relying on
archives using this method (compression method 12).
For example, to add bar.c to archive foo using bzip2 compression:
zip -Z bzip2 foo bar.c
The compression method can be abbreviated:
zip -Zb foo bar.c
-#
(-0, -1, -2, -3, -4, -5, -6, -7, -8, -9)
Regulate the speed of compression using the specified digit #, where -0 indicates no compression (store all
files), -1 indicates the fastest compression speed (less compression) and -9 indicates the slowest compression
speed (optimal compression, ignores the suffix list). The default compression level is -6.
Though still being worked, the intention is this setting will control compression speed for all compression
methods. Currently only deflation is controlled.
-!
--use-privileges
[WIN32] Use privileges (if granted) to obtain all aspects of WinNT security.
-@
--names-stdin
Take the list of input files from standard input. Only one filename per line.
-$
--volume-label
[MSDOS, OS/2, WIN32] Include the volume label for the drive holding the first file to be compressed. If you
want to include only the volume label or to force a specific drive, use the drive name as first file name, as
in:
zip -$ foo a: c:bar
EXAMPLES
The simplest example:
zip stuff *
creates the archive stuff.zip (assuming it does not exist) and puts all the files in the current directory in it, in
compressed form (the .zip suffix is added automatically, unless the archive name contains a dot already; this allows
the explicit specification of other suffixes).
Because of the way the shell on Unix does filename substitution, files starting with "." are not included; to include
these as well:
zip stuff .* *
Even this will not include any subdirectories from the current directory.
To zip up an entire directory, the command:
zip -r foo foo
creates the archive foo.zip, containing all the files and directories in the directory foo that is contained within
the current directory.
You may want to make a zip archive that contains the files in foo, without recording the directory name, foo. You
can use the -j option to leave off the paths, as in:
zip -j foo foo/*
If you are short on disk space, you might not have enough room to hold both the original directory and the corre‐
sponding compressed zip archive. In this case, you can create the archive in steps using the -m option. If foo con‐
tains the subdirectories tom, dick, and harry, you can:
zip -rm foo foo/tom
zip -rm foo foo/dick
zip -rm foo foo/harry
where the first command creates foo.zip, and the next two add to it. At the completion of each zip command, the last
created archive is deleted, making room for the next zip command to function.
Use -s to set the split size and create a split archive. The size is given as a number followed optionally by one of
k (kB), m (MB), g (GB), or t (TB). The command
zip -s 2g -r split.zip foo
creates a split archive of the directory foo with splits no bigger than 2 GB each. If foo contained 5 GB of contents
and the contents were stored in the split archive without compression (to make this example simple), this would cre‐
ate three splits, split.z01 at 2 GB, split.z02 at 2 GB, and split.zip at a little over 1 GB.
The -sp option can be used to pause zip between splits to allow changing removable media, for example, but read the
descriptions and warnings for both -s and -sp below.
Though zip does not update split archives, zip provides the new option -O (--output-file) to allow split archives to
be updated and saved in a new archive. For example,
zip inarchive.zip foo.c bar.c --out outarchive.zip
reads archive inarchive.zip, even if split, adds the files foo.c and bar.c, and writes the resulting archive to out‐
archive.zip. If inarchive.zip is split then outarchive.zip defaults to the same split size. Be aware that out‐
archive.zip and any split files that are created with it are always overwritten without warning. This may be changed
in the future.
PATTERN MATCHING
This section applies only to Unix. Watch this space for details on MSDOS and VMS operation. However, the special
wildcard characters * and [] below apply to at least MSDOS also.
The Unix shells (sh, csh, bash, and others) normally do filename substitution (also called "globbing") on command ar‐
guments. Generally the special characters are:
? match any single character
* match any number of characters (including none)
[] match any character in the range indicated within the brackets (example: [a-f], [0-9]). This form of wildcard
matching allows a user to specify a list of characters between square brackets and if any of the characters
match the expression matches. For example:
zip archive "*.[hc]"
would archive all files in the current directory that end in .h or .c.
Ranges of characters are supported:
zip archive "[a-f]*"
would add to the archive all files starting with "a" through "f".
Negation is also supported, where any character in that position not in the list matches. Negation is sup‐
ported by adding ! or ^ to the beginning of the list:
zip archive "*.[!o]"
matches files that don't end in ".o".
On WIN32, [] matching needs to be turned on with the -RE option to avoid the confusion that names with [ or ]
have caused.
When these characters are encountered (without being escaped with a backslash or quotes), the shell will look for
files relative to the current path that match the pattern, and replace the argument with a list of the names that
matched.
The zip program can do the same matching on names that are in the zip archive being modified or, in the case of the
-x (exclude) or -i (include) options, on the list of files to be operated on, by using backslashes or quotes to tell
the shell not to do the name expansion. In general, when zip encounters a name in the list of files to do, it first
looks for the name in the file system. If it finds it, it then adds it to the list of files to do. If it does not
find it, it looks for the name in the zip archive being modified (if it exists), using the pattern matching charac‐
ters described above, if present. For each match, it will add that name to the list of files to be processed, unless
this name matches one given with the -x option, or does not match any name given with the -i option.
The pattern matching includes the path, and so patterns like \*.o match names that end in ".o", no matter what the
path prefix is. Note that the backslash must precede every special character (i.e. ?*[]), or the entire argument
must be enclosed in double quotes ("").
In general, use backslashes or double quotes for paths that have wildcards to make zip do the pattern matching for
file paths, and always for paths and strings that have spaces or wildcards for -i, -x, -R, -d, and -U and anywhere
zip needs to process the wildcards.
ENVIRONMENT
The following environment variables are read and used by zip as described.
ZIPOPT
contains default options that will be used when running zip. The contents of this environment variable will
get added to the command line just after the zip command.
ZIP
[Not on RISC OS and VMS] see ZIPOPT
Zip$Options
[RISC OS] see ZIPOPT
Zip$Exts
[RISC OS] contains extensions separated by a : that will cause native filenames with one of the specified ex‐
tensions to be added to the zip file with basename and extension swapped.
ZIP_OPTS
[VMS] see ZIPOPT
SEE ALSO
compress(1), shar(1), tar(1), unzip(1), gzip(1)
DIAGNOSTICS
The exit status (or error level) approximates the exit codes defined by PKWARE and takes on the following values, ex‐
cept under VMS:
0 normal; no errors or warnings detected.
2 unexpected end of zip file.
3 a generic error in the zipfile format was detected. Processing may have completed successfully anyway;
some broken zipfiles created by other archivers have simple work-arounds.
4 zip was unable to allocate memory for one or more buffers during program initialization.
5 a severe error in the zipfile format was detected. Processing probably failed immediately.
6 entry too large to be processed (such as input files larger than 2 GB when not using Zip64 or trying to
read an existing archive that is too large) or entry too large to be split with zipsplit
7 invalid comment format
8 zip -T failed or out of memory
9 the user aborted zip prematurely with control-C (or similar)
10 zip encountered an error while using a temp file
11 read or seek error
12 zip has nothing to do
13 missing or empty zip file
14 error writing to a file
15 zip was unable to create a file to write to
16 bad command line parameters
18 zip could not open a specified file to read
19 zip was compiled with options not supported on this system
VMS interprets standard Unix (or PC) return values as other, scarier-looking things, so zip instead maps them into
VMS-style status codes. In general, zip sets VMS Facility = 1955 (0x07A3), Code = 2* Unix_status, and an appropriate
Severity (as specified in ziperr.h). More details are included in the VMS-specific documentation. See
[.vms]NOTES.TXT and [.vms]vms_msg_gen.c.
BUGS
zip 3.0 is not compatible with PKUNZIP 1.10. Use zip 1.1 to produce zip files which can be extracted by PKUNZIP 1.10.
zip files produced by zip 3.0 must not be updated by zip 1.1 or PKZIP 1.10, if they contain encrypted members or if
they have been produced in a pipe or on a non-seekable device. The old versions of zip or PKZIP would create an
archive with an incorrect format. The old versions can list the contents of the zip file but cannot extract it any‐
way (because of the new compression algorithm). If you do not use encryption and use regular disk files, you do not
have to care about this problem.
Under VMS, not all of the odd file formats are treated properly. Only stream-LF format zip files are expected to
work with zip. Others can be converted using Rahul Dhesi's BILF program. This version of zip handles some of the
conversion internally. When using Kermit to transfer zip files from VMS to MSDOS, type "set file type block" on VMS.
When transferring from MSDOS to VMS, type "set file type fixed" on VMS. In both cases, type "set file type binary"
on MSDOS.
Under some older VMS versions, zip may hang for file specifications that use DECnet syntax foo::*.*.
On OS/2, zip cannot match some names, such as those including an exclamation mark or a hash sign. This is a bug in
OS/2 itself: the 32-bit DosFindFirst/Next don't find such names. Other programs such as GNU tar are also affected by
this bug.
Under OS/2, the amount of Extended Attributes displayed by DIR is (for compatibility) the amount returned by the
16-bit version of DosQueryPathInfo(). Otherwise OS/2 1.3 and 2.0 would report different EA sizes when DIRing a file.
However, the structure layout returned by the 32-bit DosQueryPathInfo() is a bit different, it uses extra padding
bytes and link pointers (it's a linked list) to have all fields on 4-byte boundaries for portability to future OS/2
versions. Therefore the value reported by zip (which uses this 32-bit-mode size) differs from that reported by DIR.
zip stores the 32-bit format for portability, even the 16-bit MS-C-compiled version running on OS/2 1.3, so even this
one shows the 32-bit-mode size.
AUTHORS
Copyright (C) 1997-2008 Info-ZIP.
Currently distributed under the Info-ZIP license.
Copyright (C) 1990-1997 Mark Adler, Richard B. Wales, Jean-loup Gailly, Onno van der Linden, Kai Uwe Rommel, Igor
Mandrichenko, John Bush and Paul Kienitz.
Original copyright:
Permission is granted to any individual or institution to use, copy, or redistribute this software so long as all of
the original files are included, that it is not sold for profit, and that this copyright notice is retained.
LIKE ANYTHING ELSE THAT'S FREE, ZIP AND ITS ASSOCIATED UTILITIES ARE PROVIDED AS IS AND COME WITH NO WARRANTY OF ANY
KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED. IN NO EVENT WILL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES RESULTING FROM
THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE.
Please send bug reports and comments using the web page at: www.info-zip.org. For bug reports, please include the
version of zip (see zip -h), the make options used to compile it (see zip -v), the machine and operating system in
use, and as much additional information as possible.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks to R. P. Byrne for his Shrink.Pas program, which inspired this project, and from which the shrink algorithm
was stolen; to Phil Katz for placing in the public domain the zip file format, compression format, and .ZIP filename
extension, and for accepting minor changes to the file format; to Steve Burg for clarifications on the deflate for‐
mat; to Haruhiko Okumura and Leonid Broukhis for providing some useful ideas for the compression algorithm; to Keith
Petersen, Rich Wales, Hunter Goatley and Mark Adler for providing a mailing list and ftp site for the Info-ZIP group
to use; and most importantly, to the Info-ZIP group itself (listed in the file infozip.who) without whose tireless
testing and bug-fixing efforts a portable zip would not have been possible. Finally we should thank (blame) the
first Info-ZIP moderator, David Kirschbaum, for getting us into this mess in the first place. The manual page was
rewritten for Unix by R. P. C. Rodgers and updated by E. Gordon for zip 3.0.
Info-ZIP 16 June 2008 (v3.0) ZIP(1)