Archiving

(Lossless, for generic data + file archives)

See also: Compression, Error correction

Archiving only
(many files => 1 file, no compression attempted)


 * AR file format (.a, .lib) -- Unix Archiver (ar) format as used by various compilers/linkers
 * ARC (Internet Archive) (.arc)
 * BagIt
 * CPIO (.cpio)
 * LBR (.lbr)
 * LBR (Commodore) (.lbr)
 * Lynx (archiver) (Commodore) (.lnx)
 * Mozilla Archive (.mar)
 * Tape Archive (.tar)

Compression + archiving
(Multiple files => 1 file, makes it smaller. See Compression for formats that compress single files/streams, and Disk Image Formats for formats that capture the low-level structure of a disk)


 * 7z (.7z)
 * ACE (.ace)
 * ALZ (.alz) (ALZip)
 * ARC (.arc)
 * ARC (Commodore) (.arc)
 * ARC (FreeArc) (.arc)
 * ARC (Internet Archive) (gzipped form: .arc.gz)
 * Apple Disk Image
 * ARJ
 * BACKUP (MS-DOS)
 * BlakHole (.bh)
 * BRU - (RSX-11M backup)
 * Cabinet (.cab)
 * Compact File Set (.cfs)
 * Disk Archiver (.dar)
 * DWC (.dwc)
 * EGG (ALZip) (.egg)
 * Greenleaf ArchiveLib
 * IMP (.imp)
 * KGB Archiver (.kgb)
 * LHA (.lzh, .lha)
 * LZX (.lzx)
 * PackIt (.pit)
 * PAQ (.pa6, .pa7, .pa8, others)
 * PerfectCompress (.uca)
 * PMA (.pma)
 * RAR (.rar)
 * RK (WinRK)
 * Softlib (Softdisk Publishing)
 * Spark (.spk)
 * StuffIt (.sit)
 * StuffIt X (.sitx)
 * UltraCompressor II (.uc, .uc0, .uc2, .ucn, .ur2, .ue2)
 * WARC (.warc, .warc.gz)
 * Windows Imaging Format (.wim, .swm)
 * XP3 (.xp3) - used in KiriKiri Adventure Game System
 * ZIP (.zip)
 * ZOO (.zoo)

Diff files
(containing only the parts of a file that have changed, so they can be applied to an existing file to update it; used for update distribution and incremental backups)
 * bsdiff
 * FidoNet nodediff
 * RTPatch

Institutional archiving

 * OAIS (Open Archival Information System, an organization that does archiving)
 * Submission Information Package

Metadata formats

 * Archive Team hostname file
 * Internet Archive metadata

(see also Bibliographic data)

Program/App/Applet specialized archive formats

 * Bundle file (Linux)
 * Bundle file (OS X)
 * IPA (.ipa) => iOS app in archived form; actually in zip format
 * Jar (.j, .jar) => this is just a renamed zip file with some mandatory files

Self-extracting archives
(in addition, some of the other archivers are able to produce executable files for some platform which include the archived data and a program to extract them, and generally have the file extension normal for executables, such as .exe for DOS/Windows)
 * SDA (Self Dissolving Archive)
 * SEA (Self-Extracting Archive]
 * SFX (Self-Extracting Archive)
 * shar (Shell Archive, in Unix-like systems)

Transfer encodings
(convert binaries to printable ASCII for download; encode resource forks or metadata together with file, etc.)
 * BinHex (.hqx)
 * MacBinary

(see also E-Mail, newsgroups, and forums for transfer encodings used in such media)

Uncategorized

 * 7zX s7z
 * AFA afa
 * APX apx
 * ARCFS - ArcFS ArchivePacker
 * cpt - Compact Pro
 * DGCA dgc
 * GCA gca
 * HA ha
 * ICE ice
 * IFHC - Amiga FileImploder Clone
 * Inflate infl
 * ??_ - MS-DOS Compression
 * PAK pak
 * partimg - PartImage
 * pea - PeaZip
 * PIM pim
 * qda - Quadruple D
 * RZIP rzip
 * ba - SCIFER
 * sen - Scifer
 * sfArk sfark
 * SQX sqx
 * uha - UHarc
 * hki - WinHKI
 * rk - WinRK
 * XAR xar
 * YZ1 yz1
 * zz - Zzip