BZ2
A single-stream compressed file format produced by bzip2, using Burrows-Wheeler block sorting and Huffman coding for lossless compression.
General information
- Format name
- bzip2 Compressed File
- Extension
.bz2- MIME type
application/x-bzip2- Category
- archive
- Data type
- Binary
- Developer
- Julian Seward
File signatures
| Offset | Hexadecimal | ASCII | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 42 5A 68 | BZh | bzip2 streams begin with BZh followed by a block-size digit. |
Common uses
Compressed downloads
Unix and Linux file compression
Source-code distribution
Backup compression
Compressed TAR archives
Related formats
Technical resources
| Resource | Publisher | Link |
|---|---|---|
| bzip2 and libbzip2 Manual | Sourceware | Open resource ↗ |
Record information
- Verified
- October 4, 2026
- Last updated
- October 4, 2026