What is a ZOO file?

A .zoo file is an archive format that is used to compress and store files and directories; is similar to other archive formats like .zip, .tar, and .rar. The .zoo format was popular in early days of computing but has become less common in recent years. It was originally developed by Rahul Dhesi and was used primarily on Unix and DOS systems.

A .zoo file typically contains one or more files and directories that have been compressed and archived into single file. You can create and extract .zoo files using various software tools that support this format.

ZOO archives have a unique feature that allows them to store multiple versions of same file provided each version was modified on different date. This means that ZOO users can save and access previous iterations of file directly from ZOO archive. This feature enables users to revert to earlier version of file or compare older version with more recent one offering convenient way to manage file revisions and changes over time.

Common operations of ZOO files

Here are some common operations associated with .zoo files:

  1. Creating a .zoo file: You can use command-line utility like “zoo” to create .zoo file. For example, following command will create .zoo archive from directory:

    zoo a -c archive.zoo directory/

    In this command, “a” stands for “add,” “-c” specifies compression and “archive.zoo” is the name of output archive.

  2. Extracting files from a .zoo file: To extract contents of .zoo archive, you can use command like this:

    zoo e archive.zoo

    This command will extract files from archive.zoo file.

  3. Listing the contents of a .zoo file: You can list contents of .zoo archive without extracting them using “l” option:

    zoo l archive.zoo

How to open a ZOO file?

Programs that open ZOO files include

  • zoo (Free) for (Windows, Linux)

References

See Also