ZIP (file format)

The ZIP file format is a popular lossless data compression and archival format created by Phil Katz, founder of PKWARE. A ZIP file contains one or more files that have been compressed, to reduce their file size, or stored as-is. A number of compression algorithms are permitted in zip files but in 2008 only DEFLATE is widely used and supported.

ZIP files generally use the file extensions ".zip" or ".ZIP" and the MIME media type application/zip. Some software uses the ZIP file format as a wrapper for a large number of small items in a specific structure. Generally when this is done a different file extension is used.