LZIP compressed archive
File type: Archive and compressed file
Files with the .lz file extension are compressed with Lzip, a lossless data compressor.
File type category:
Archive and compressed file
Date updated: October 21, 2026
Lzip is a lossless data compressor based on the LZMA algorithm. It provides strong integrity checking and has a command-line interface similar to gzip and bzip2.
An .lz file contains data compressed by Lzip. Lzip compresses an input stream rather than defining a general archive structure, so archives are commonly created by compressing a tar archive and may use a name such as .tar.lz.
GNU Lzip is available for Linux and other Unix-like systems.
Use Lzip on Linux or another Unix-like system to decompress an .lz file. Lzip restores the original data, which can then be opened with the appropriate application.
An .lz file is normally converted by decompressing it with Lzip and then compressing the resulting data with another compressor. If it contains a tar archive, extract or repack that archive separately before choosing the new compression format.
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LZIP
