xz

xz [options] [file...]

xz is a general-purpose compression tool using the LZMA2 algorithm. It provides high compression ratios, often better than gzip and bzip2, though compression is slower.
By default, xz compresses files and replaces them with .xz versions. Use -k to keep originals or -c to write to stdout for pipelines.
Multi-threading support (-T) significantly speeds up compression on multi-core systems. Decompression is single-threaded but fast.
The compression level affects both ratio and memory usage. Level 9 requires significantly more memory than lower levels, both for compression and decompression.

-d, --decompress

Decompress files

Compress files (default)

Keep original file

Write to stdout, keep original file

Force compression/decompression

Test compressed file integrity

List information about compressed files

Compression level (0=fast, 9=best compression)

More compression (slower)

Use N threads (0 = auto-detect cores)

Verbose output

Suppress warnings

High compression levels (7-9) use substantial memory. Level 9 may require over 600MB for compression and 65MB for decompression.
For archive distribution, consider xz's memory requirements on target systems. Lower compression levels are more universally usable.
xz format is not compatible with gzip or bzip2. Use appropriate tools (gzip, bzip2) for those formats.

xz was developed by Lasse Collin and Igor Pavlov (LZMA SDK). The xz format and liblzma were released in 2009 as successors to the LZMA format used by 7-Zip. xz is now widely used for compressing Linux kernel tarballs and package archives.

gzip(1), bzip2(1), zstd(1), tar(1), xzcat(1)