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 © 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.