#top zip¶

[Systems using EBCDIC] Translate file to ASCII format.

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.

[VM/CMS and MVS] force file to be read binary (default is text).

[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

Use the specified path for the temporary zip archive. For example:


will put the temporary zip archive in the directory /tmp, copying over stuff.zip to the current directory when done. This option is only 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.

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.

Remove (delete) entries from a zip archive. For example:


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.

Under systems where the shell does not expand wildcards, such as MSDOS, the backslashes are not needed. The above would then be


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.

[MacOS] Include only data-fork of files zipped into the archive. Good for exporting files to foreign operating-systems. Resource-forks will be ignored at all.

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:


(The variable ZIPOPT can be used for any option except -i and -x and can include several options.) The option -D is a shorthand for -x "*/" but the latter cannot be set as default in the ZIPOPT environment variable.

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.

[OS/2] Use the .LONGNAME Extended Attribute (if found) as filename.

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:


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 ''summertime'' or Daylight Savings Time).

Fix the zip archive. This option can be used if some portions of the archive are missing. It is not guaranteed to work, so you MUST make a backup of the original archive first.

When doubled as in -FF the compressed sizes given inside the damaged archive are not trusted 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, for example if it has only been truncated, so try this option first.

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 recovered; you can remove them from the archive using the -d option of zip.

Grow (append to) the specified zip archive, instead of creating a new one. If this operation fails, zip attempts to restore the archive to its original state. If the restoration fails, the archive might become corrupted. This option is ignored when there's no existing archive or when at least one archive member must be updated or deleted.

Display the zip help information (this also appears if zip is run with no arguments).

Include only the specified files, as in:


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 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. Not escaping wildcards on shells that do wildcard substitution before zip gets the command line may seem to work but files in subdirectories matching the pattern will never be checked and so not matched. For shells, such as Win32 command prompts, that do not replace file patterns containing wildcards with the respective file names, zip will do the recursion and escaping the wildcards is not needed.

Also possible:


which will only include the files in the current directory and its subdirectories that match the patterns in the file include.lst.

[Acorn RISC OS] Don't scan through Image files. When used, zip will not consider Image files (eg. DOS partitions 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 directory (and its content) while using the 'I' option will result in a zipfile containing a Spark archive. Obviously this second case will also be obtained (without the 'I' option) if SparkFS isn't loaded.

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 path).

[MacOS] record Fullpath (+ Volname). The complete path including volume will be stored. By default the relative path will be stored.

Strip any prepended data (e.g. a SFX stub) from the archive.

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.

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 input files already contain CR LF, this option adds an extra CR. This ensures that unzip -a on Unix will get back an exact copy of the original file, to undo the effect of zip -l. See the note on binary detection for -ll below.

Translate the MSDOS end-of-line CR LF into Unix LF. This option should not be used on binary files and a warning will be issued when a file is converted that later is detected to be binary. This option can be used on MSDOS if the zip file is intended for unzip under Unix.

In Zip 2.31 binary detection has been changed from a simple percentage of binary characters being considered binary to a more selective method that should consider files in many character sets, including UTF-8, that only include text characters in that character set to be text. This allows unzip -a to convert these files.

Display the zip license.

Move the specified files into the zip archive; actually, this deletes the target directories/files after making 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.

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 separated by either colons or semicolons. For example:


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 methods). 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:


To attempt compression on all files, use:


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).

[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.

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:


will change the last modified time of foo.zip to the latest time of the entries in foo.zip.

use password to encrypt zipfile entries (if any). THIS IS INSECURE! Many multi-user operating systems provide 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 passwords. (And where security is truly important, use strong encryption such as Pretty Good Privacy instead of the relatively weak encryption provided by standard zipfile utilities.)

Quiet mode; eliminate informational messages and comment prompts. (Useful, for example, in shell scripts and background tasks).

[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

Travel the directory structure recursively; for example:


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).

Travel the directory structure recursively starting at the current directory; for example:


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 for PKZIP users: the equivalent command is

[MSDOS, OS/2, WIN32 and ATARI] Include system and hidden files. [MacOS] Includes finder invisible files, which are ignored otherwise.

Do not operate on files modified prior to the specified date, where mm is the month (0-12), dd is the day of the month (1-31), and yyyy is the year. The ISO 8601 date format yyyy-mm-dd is also accepted. For example:



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.

Do not operate on files modified after or at the specified date, where mm is the month (0-12), dd is the day of the month (1-31), and yyyy is the year. The ISO 8601 date format yyyy-mm-dd is also accepted. For example:



will add all the files in foo and its subdirectories that were last modified before the 30 November 1995, to the zip archive infamy.zip.

Test the integrity of the new zip file. If the check fails, the old zip file is unchanged and (with the -m option) no input files are removed.

Replace (update) an existing entry in the zip archive only if it has been modified more recently than the version already in the zip archive. For example:


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 arguments acts like the -f (freshen) option.

Verbose mode or print diagnostic version info.

Normally, when applied to real operations, this option enables the display of a progress indicator during compression and requests verbose diagnostic info about zipfile structure oddities.

When -v is the only command line argument, and either stdin or stdout is not redirected to a file, a diagnostic screen is printed. In addition to the help screen header with program name, version, and release date, some pointers to the Info-ZIP home and distribution sites are given. Then, it shows information about the target environment (compiler type and version, OS version, compilation date and the enabled optional features used to create the zip executable.

[VMS] Save VMS file attributes and use portable form. zip archives created with this option are truncated at EOF but still may not be usable on other systems depending on the file types being zipped.

[VMS] Save VMS file attributes. zip archives created with this option include the entire file and should be able to recreate most VMS files on VMS systems but these archives will generally not be usable on other systems.

[VMS] Append the version number of the files to the name, including multiple versions of files. (default: use only the most recent version of a specified file).

Explicitly exclude the specified files, as in:


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. If you do not escape wildcards in patterns it may seem to work but files in subdirectories will not be checked for matches.

Also possible:


which will include the contents of foo in foo.zip while excluding all the files that match the patterns in the file exclude.lst (each file pattern on a separate line).

Do not save extra file attributes (Extended Attributes on OS/2, uid/gid and file times on Unix).

Store symbolic links as such in the zip archive, instead of compressing and storing the file referred to by the link (UNIX only).

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 VAX/VMS). The comment can be taken from a file:

Regulate the speed of compression using the specified digit #, where -0 indicates no compression (store all files), -1 indicates the fastest compression method (less compression) and -9 indicates the slowest compression method (optimal compression, ignores the suffix list). The default compression level is -6.

[WIN32] Use priviliges (if granted) to obtain all aspects of WinNT security.

Take the list of input files from standard input. Only one filename per line.

[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: