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I have the following folder structure:

  • root
    • folder1
    • folder2
    • folder3
    • 7za.exe

I want to run the 7-zip command line tool to compress all the files in folder1 to a zip file called folder1.zip.

Running the following

7za.exe a -tzip folder1.zip folder1\\*.*

produces a zip file as expected. However, when I open the zip file, it has a folder in it called folder1, and inside that I have all the files that were inside that folder. I don't want the folder name added to the zip folder, i.e. I would like to add all the files in a "Flat" file format.

I also don't want to recursively run the command line tool for each individual file/folder.

Is there a switch that provides this functionality?

robinCTS
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gg.
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  • Can you cd into folder1 and 7za.exe a -tzip ..\folder1.zip *.*? – zpletan Sep 26 '11 at 17:09
  • He can, but then 7za.exe is not inside that folder, so running the original command won't work because it won't be able to find 7za.exe. Maybe using start ..\7za.exe might fix that but it's messy and 7-Zip should be able to do this, without having to do that. – bat_cmd Sep 14 '22 at 13:08

4 Answers4

196

From the 7-Zip Help file:

a (Add) command

Adds files to archive.

Examples

7z a archive1.zip subdir\

adds all files and subfolders from folder subdir to archive archive1.zip. The filenames in archive will contain subdir\ prefix.

7z a archive2.zip .\subdir\*

adds all files and subfolders from folder subdir to archive archive2.zip. The filenames in archive will not contain subdir\ prefix.

cd /D c:\dir1\

7z a c:\archive3.zip dir2\dir3\

The filenames in archive c:\archive3.zip will contain dir2\dir3\ prefix, but they will not contain c:\dir1\ prefix.

So the command you'd want would be: 7za.exe a folder1.zip .\folder1\*

Also, pay attention to 7-Zip's handling of wildcards. It doesn't treat *.* as "all files" -- it means "all files with a period in the filename." Extension-less files will be missed. If you really want all files, just use * instead.

Finally, the -tzip parameter isn't needed if the archive filename ends in .zip. 7-Zip is smart enough to figure out which format you want in those cases. It's only required when you want a custom extension (e.g. 7za.exe a -tzip foo.xpi <files> for a Mozilla Add-on).

Community
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afrazier
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  • This comment was really helpful. I'm trying to script 7zip to create zip archives for comic files, and had no idea that 7zip could save custom extensions. Now I don't have to rename the zip archives with a second program. Thank you! – zjdrummond Sep 22 '23 at 20:30
5

This worked for me

Consider folder structure like C:\Parent\SubFolders..... And you want to create parent.zip which will contain all files and folders C:\Parent without parent folder [i.e it will start from SubFolders.....]

cd /D "C:\Parent"

"7z.exe" a Parent.zip "*.*" -r

This will create Parent.zip in C:\Parent

Pritesh Dhokchaule
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    This duplicates another answer and adds no new content. Please don't post an answer unless you actually have something new to contribute. – DavidPostill Jun 07 '16 at 20:38
  • Well while I was searching for solution I didn’t get exact this solution. Obviously I will not just copy paste some answers I found online. I spend some time on it so I felt I should share it. As per me you can find this exact answer here and on Stack Overflow posted by me. – Pritesh Dhokchaule Jun 09 '16 at 04:54
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    Note that 7-Zip does not consider *.* to mean "all files" but rather "all files that have a period as a part of the filename." So this answer will actually omit files that do not have an extension (this is noted in the accepted answer). – Bill_Stewart Feb 25 '19 at 19:33
1

Just to expand on the accepted answer (I was not able to add comment there):

On Linux adding '*' didn't work for me, so I ended up concocting more verbose command line which gave desired result:

curr_dir=$(pwd); \ 
cd source_code/lambda/ ; \
7z a ../../lambda.zip .; \
cd $curr_dir \
unset curr_dir

===========

script explanation:

  • save current dir path to use later;
  • navigate to directory which needs to be archived;
  • create archive (notice '.' (dot) in the end);
  • go back to the original dir;
  • get rid of the variable which stored original dir path

I hope it might be useful for somebody.

Toto
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Humanier
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-5

How about this. e.g. Folder/subFolder1, Folder/subfolder2

select all subfolder > rightclick then create archive > select whatever format

*The archive name would be the parent folder..

Simple right?

user708375
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    The question is about the CLI for 7-zip, not how to use the GUI. Learning how to use the GUI is pointless when you want to automate things. – binki Mar 17 '17 at 21:18