zpaqfranz Usage Notes

A summary of basic zpaqfranz usage on macOS.

Creating and Adding to Archives

# Create an archive (or add incremental data if it already exists)
zpaqfranz a archive.zpaq /path/to/dir

# Create with maximum compression
zpaqfranz a archive.zpaq /path/to/dir -m5

# Compression levels: 0=no compression, 1..5=fast..high compression (default: 1)

The a command creates a new archive if one does not exist. If run against an existing archive, it adds an incremental backup (with deduplication) as a new version.

Listing Contents

zpaqfranz l archive.zpaq
zpaqfranz l archive.zpaq -summary       # Concise output
zpaqfranz l archive.zpaq -find keyword  # Filter by name
zpaqfranz l archive.zpaq -all           # Show all versions

Extracting

# Extract to the current directory
zpaqfranz x archive.zpaq

# Extract to a specified directory
zpaqfranz x archive.zpaq -to /path/to/output

# Extract only specific files
zpaqfranz x archive.zpaq "filename.txt" -to /output

Deleting and Organizing

zpaq archives are append-only by design, so files cannot be directly deleted from an archive. Use the following methods instead.

Logical Deletion

Delete files from the source directory and then re-run the a command. zpaqfranz records the deletion as a new version.

Synchronization (Removing Extra Files)

The k command deletes files from the destination that do not exist in the archive. This is useful when you want to precisely restore a specific snapshot.

zpaqfranz k archive.zpaq /source -to /destination

Physically Shrinking an Archive

Remove old versions to reduce the archive size.

zpaqfranz consolidate archive.zpaq   # Compress to latest version only
zpaqfranz trim archive.zpaq          # Remove old/unreferenced data

Notes

• Archives are versioned. Each time you run a, a new snapshot is created
• Deduplication is enabled by default. Unchanged blocks are not re-saved
• -m5 provides maximum compression but is CPU-intensive. It has little effect on files that are already compressed, such as photos and videos