.zip File — ZIP Archive

ZIP is the most widely used archive file format, supporting lossless data compression, file bundling, and optional encryption. Created by Phil Katz in 1989 with the PKZIP program, ZIP files use a catalog-at-end structure that allows individual files to be extracted without reading the entire archive. Each file in a ZIP can use different compression methods — Deflate is the most common, but Store (no compression), Deflate64, BZIP2, LZMA, and Zstandard are also supported. ZIP supports AES-256 encryption for password protection (the legacy ZipCrypto encryption is considered insecure). ZIP is the native archive format for Windows (built-in since Windows ME), macOS (Archive Utility), and is used as the underlying container for many other formats including DOCX, XLSX, EPUB, JAR, APK, and IPA. The format supports file sizes up to 16 EB in ZIP64 mode, Unicode filenames, split archives, and self-extracting archives (SFX). ZIP's ubiquity and universal operating system support make it the default choice for file distribution, email attachments, and data packaging across all platforms.