Unix CPIO archive
File type: Archive and compressed file
Files with cpio suffix are compressed archives in special CPIO format used mainly on UNIX systems.
File type category:
Archive and compressed file
Date updated: July 19, 2025
File extension cpio is generally used for a CPIO archive used in UNIX system.
A .cpio file is a stream of files and directories in a single archive, and often ends with a .cpio file extension. The archive has header information that allows for an application such as the GNU cpio tool to extract the files and directories into a file system. The header of a cpio archive also contains information such as the file name, time stamp, owner and permissions.
MIME: application/x-cpio
Many file archivers support CPIO format and can extract or repack the files.
Can be repacked to other compressed formats, however only some of them will be recognized in UNIX programs.
7-zip (Microsoft Windows)
IZArc (Microsoft Windows)
ZipZag (Microsoft Windows)
PeaZip (Microsoft Windows)
Zipeg (Microsoft Windows)
The Unarchiver (Apple macOS / Mac OS X)
Zipeg for Mac (Apple macOS / Mac OS X)
Unix (Linux/Unix)
GNU cpio (Linux/Unix)
Zipeg (Microsoft Windows)
Zipeg for Mac (Apple macOS / Mac OS X)
GnuWin32 CPIO (Microsoft Windows)
Unix (Linux/Unix)
GNU cpio (Linux/Unix)
7-zip (Microsoft Windows)
IZArc (Microsoft Windows)
GnuWin32 CPIO (Microsoft Windows)
WinArchiver (Microsoft Windows)
ZipZag (Microsoft Windows)
PeaZip (Microsoft Windows)
Zipeg (Microsoft Windows)
The Unarchiver (Apple macOS / Mac OS X)
Zipeg for Mac (Apple macOS / Mac OS X)
Unix (Linux/Unix)
GNU cpio (Linux/Unix)
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