How to open a 7z file

Method 1 — open a 7z in your browser (no install, no upload)

This is the quickest path when you just want to see what is in a 7z, or preview a file inside it, without installing anything. Everything runs locally in the tab.

• Go to ZipTool and drag the .7z onto the page (or use the file picker, or paste a URL).
• The file tree opens on the left. Search to jump to any entry by name.
• Click a file to preview it inline — code with syntax highlighting, images, audio, video, and PDFs render in the viewer.
• A nested archive inside the 7z can be browsed too, and a single entry can be downloaded straight from the file tree.
• Nothing is uploaded: close the tab and the data is gone. You can confirm it by opening a 7z and then turning off your internet — browsing and previewing keep working.

Method 2 — Windows: 7-Zip or WinRAR

On Windows, 7-Zip is the reference application — it is free, open-source, and the same engine the in-browser decoder is built from. It both creates and extracts 7z archives, including solid archives and AES-256 encryption. Install it, then right-click the .7z and choose 7-Zip → Extract here or Extract to “folder”.

WinRAR also reads (and creates) 7z archives and integrates into the right-click menu. To list contents without extracting, 7-Zip’s file manager shows the tree the same way an in-browser viewer does.

Method 3 — macOS: Keka or The Unarchiver

macOS does not open 7z natively (it handles ZIP but not 7z). Install Keka or The Unarchiver (free, from the App Store), set it as the default for .7z, and double-clicking a 7z extracts it into a folder beside the archive — the same one-step flow macOS uses for ZIP.

Keka also handles encrypted 7z archives that simpler tools refuse. ZipTool can decrypt a password-protected 7z in the browser once you enter the password — see extracting a 7z online — but for split archives or unusual setups, reach for Keka or 7-Zip.

Method 4 — Linux and the command line: 7z

On Linux, install the 7z command (on Debian/Ubuntu: sudo apt install p7zip-full). Then extract with paths into the current directory:

7z x archive.7z extracts the full tree (the lowercase x preserves folder structure; e extracts everything flat without paths). To only list contents — the terminal equivalent of a file tree — use 7z l archive.7z. For a single file without unpacking everything, 7z e archive.7z path/inside/file.txt pulls just that entry.

The same 7-Zip engine powers many GUI tools and the in-browser decoder ZipTool uses, so the results match — the difference is only where the work happens (your shell, a desktop app, or your browser tab).

If your 7z will not open

A few common causes, and what to do about them:

It is password-protected. An encrypted .7z needs the password before anything inside can be read. ZipTool will prompt for it and decrypt the archive in your browser; otherwise open it in 7-Zip, Keka, or 7z x -p<password> archive.7z on the command line.

A solid archive is large and the tool runs out of memory. Solid 7z archives compress the whole archive as one block, so extraction can need more RAM than a non-solid archive of the same size. On constrained devices, extract a large 7z in a desktop tool rather than a browser tab.

The download is incomplete or corrupt. A truncated 7z is missing its end-of-archive record and cannot be read fully. Re-download it; unlike RAR, 7z has no built-in recovery record to repair minor damage.

Privacy: where your 7z is processed

When you open a 7z in a desktop tool, the file is read from disk on your own machine — private by default. The same is true of the in-browser viewer: the archive is decoded inside your tab by a WebAssembly build of 7-Zip, so the contents never travel to a server. There is no upload step, which is the whole point of doing it client-side.

That is a privacy improvement, not a security guarantee. Opening a 7z to inspect it is low-risk; running an executable you extracted from an untrusted 7z is not. Keep the same caution you would with any download, and see security and privacy for the fuller picture.

Frequently asked questions