Create an archive from a directory without the directory name being added to the archive

Question

I have the following folder structure

• root
  • folder1
  • folder2
  • folder3
  • 7za.exe

I want to run the 7-zip command line tool to zip up all the files in folder1 to a zip file called folder1.zip.

Running the following

7za.exe a -tzip folder1.zip folder1\\*.*

produces a zip file as expected. However, when I open the zip file, it has a folder in it called "folder1", and inside that I have all the files listed. I don't want the folder name added to the zip folder, i.e. add all the files in a "Flat" file format.

I also don't want to recursively run the command line tool for each individual file. Is there a switch that provides this functionality?

Answer 1

From the 7-Zip Help file:

a (Add) command

Adds files to archive.

Examples

7z a archive1.zip subdir\

adds all files and subfolders from folder subdir to archive archive1.zip. The filenames in archive will contain subdir\ prefix.

7z a archive2.zip .\subdir\*

adds all files and subfolders from folder subdir to archive archive2.zip. The filenames in archive will not contain subdir\ prefix.

cd /D c:\dir1\

7z a c:\archive3.zip dir2\dir3\

The filenames in archive c:\archive3.zip will contain dir2\dir3\ prefix, but they will not contain c:\dir1\ prefix.

So the command you'd want would be: 7za.exe a folder1.zip .\folder1\*

Also, pay attention to 7-Zip's handling of wildcards. It doesn't treat *.* as "all files" -- it means "all files with a period in the filename." Extension-less files will be missed. If you really want all files, just use * instead.

Finally, the -tzip parameter isn't needed if the archive filename ends in .zip. 7-Zip is smart enough to figure out which format you want in those cases. It's only required when you want a custom extension (e.g. 7za.exe a -tzip foo.xpi <files> for a Mozilla Add-on).