Libarchive

libarchive is a free and open-source library for reading and writing various archive and compression formats. It is written in C and works on most Unix-like systems and Windows.^[2]

libarchive
Initial release	2003; 22 years ago (2003)[1]
Stable release	3.8.2  / 15 October 2025
Repository	github.com/libarchive/libarchive
Written in	C
Operating system	cross-platform
Type	library
License	New BSD License[2]
Website	libarchive.org

History

libarchive's development was started in 2003 as part of the FreeBSD project.^[1] During the early years it was led by the FreeBSD project, but later it became an independent project.^[3] It was first released with FreeBSD 5.3 in November 2004.^[4]

libarchive

libarchive automatically detects and reads archive formats.^[5] If the archive is compressed, libarchive also detects and handles compression formats before evaluating the archive.^[5] libarchive is designed to minimize the copying of data internally for optimal performance.^[6]

Supported archive formats:^[7]

• 7z – read and write
• ar – read and write
• cab – read only
• cpio – read and write
• ISO9660 – read and write
• lha & lzh – read only
• pax – read and write
• rar – read only
• shar – write only
• tar – read and write
• warc (ISO 28500:2009) – read and write
• xar – read and write
• zip – read and write

Utilities

libarchive provides command-line utilities called bsdtar and bsdcpio.^[2] These are complete re-implementation based on libarchive.^[8][9] These are the default system tar and cpio on FreeBSD, NetBSD, macOS and Windows.^[4]

There is also bsdcat, designed to decompress a file to the standard output like zcat.^[10]

Users

libarchive was originally developed for FreeBSD, but is also used in NetBSD and macOS as part of those operating systems.^[4]

bsdtar has been included in Windows since Windows 10 April 2018 Update.^[11] In May 2023, Microsoft announced Windows 11 will natively support additional archive formats such as 7z and RAR via libarchive.^[12]