lzip(1) User Commands lzip(1)
NAME
lzip - reduces the size of files
SYNOPSIS
lzip [options] [files]
DESCRIPTION
Lzip is a lossless data compressor with a user interface similar to the
one of gzip or bzip2. Lzip uses a simplified form of LZMA
(Lempel-Ziv-Markov chain-Algorithm) and is designed to achieve complete
interoperability between implementations. The maximum dictionary size
is 512 MiB so that any lzip file can be decompressed on 32-bit
machines. Lzip provides accurate and robust 3-factor integrity
checking. 'lzip -0' compresses about as fast as gzip, while 'lzip -9'
compresses most files more than bzip2. Decompression speed is
intermediate between gzip and bzip2. Lzip provides better data recovery
capabilities than gzip and bzip2. Lzip has been designed, written, and
tested with great care to replace gzip and bzip2 as general-purpose
compressed format for Unix-like systems.
OPTIONS
-h display usage help and exit
--help display full help and exit
-V, --version
output version information and exit
-a, --trailing-error
exit with error status if trailing data
-b, --member-size=<bytes>
set member size limit of multimember files
-c, --stdout
write to standard output, keep input files
-d, --decompress
decompress, test compressed file integrity
-f, --force
overwrite existing output files
-F, --recompress
force re-compression of compressed files
-k, --keep
keep (don't delete) input files
-l, --list
print (un)compressed file sizes
-m, --match-length=<bytes>
set match length limit in bytes [36]
-o, --output=<file>
write to <file>, keep input files
-q, --quiet
suppress all messages
-s, --dictionary-size=<bytes>
set dictionary size limit in bytes [8 MiB]
-S, --volume-size=<bytes>
set volume size limit in bytes
-t, --test
test compressed file integrity
-v, --verbose
be verbose (a 2nd -v gives more)
-0 .. -9
set compression level [default 6]
--loose-trailing
allow trailing data seeming corrupt header
Lzip replaces each named file with a (de)compressed version. If no
file names are given, or if a file is '-', lzip compresses or
decompresses from standard input to standard output. Numbers may
contain underscore separators between groups of digits and may be
followed by a SI or binary multiplier: 1_234_567kB, 4KiB. Dictionary
sizes 12 to 29 are interpreted as powers of two, meaning 2^12 to 2^29
bytes.
The bidimensional parameter space of LZMA can't be mapped to a linear
scale optimal for all files. If your files are large, very repetitive,
etc, you may need to use the options --dictionary-size and
--match-length directly to achieve optimal performance.
To extract all the files from archive 'foo.tar.lz', use the commands
'tar -xf foo.tar.lz' or 'lzip -cd foo.tar.lz | tar -xf -'.
The ideas embodied in lzip are due to (at least) the following people:
Abraham Lempel and Jacob Ziv (for the LZ algorithm), Andrei Markov (for
the definition of Markov chains), G.N.N. Martin (for the definition of
range encoding), Igor Pavlov (for putting all the above together in
LZMA), and Julian Seward (for bzip2's CLI).
EXIT STATUS
0 for a normal exit, 1 for environmental problems (file not found,
invalid command-line options, I/O errors, etc), 2 to indicate a corrupt
or invalid input file, 3 for an internal consistency error (e.g., bug)
which caused lzip to panic.
REPORTING BUGS
Report bugs to lzip-bug@nongnu.org
Lzip home page: http://www.nongnu.org/lzip/lzip.html
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (C) 2026 Antonio Diaz Diaz. License GPLv2+: GNU GPL version
2 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.
SEE ALSO
The full documentation for lzip is maintained as a Texinfo manual. If
the info and lzip programs are properly installed at your site, the
command
info lzip
should give you access to the complete manual.
lzip 1.26 March 2026 lzip(1)
lzip 1.26 - Generated Wed Apr 1 05:46:01 CDT 2026