Listing Files In A Password-Protected 7-Zip Archive In C# & .NET
[C#, .NET, Compression]
In our previous post, “Listing Files In A 7-Zip Archive In C# & .NET”, we looked at how to list the files in a 7-Zip 7z archive.
In this post, we will look at how to list the files in a password-protected 7z archive.
We start, as usual, with our project structure.
To ensure that the 7z is copied to the output folder, add the following element:
<ItemGroup>
<None Include="Books.7z">
<CopyToOutputDirectory>PreserveNewest</CopyToOutputDirectory>
</None>
</ItemGroup>
We then add the CliWrap library. This is orders of magnitude easier and more flexible than the native .NET Process class.
dotnet add package CliWrap
The next order of business is that you need to know
- The name of the
7-Zipexecutable - Where it is
In macOS (that I am using), the executable is actually named 7zz.
You can find out where it is using the where command.
where 7zz
For Windows, the executable is named 7z.exe, and is usually in the Program Files folder.
The code itself is as follows:
using System.IO;
using System.Reflection;
using CliWrap;
using CliWrap.Buffered;
using Serilog;
Log.Logger = new LoggerConfiguration()
.WriteTo.Console().CreateLogger();
// Extract the current folder where the executable is running
var currentFolder = Path.GetDirectoryName(Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location)!;
// Construct the full path to the zip file
var source7ZipFile = Path.Combine(currentFolder, "Books.7z");
// Archive password
const string password = "A$tr0ngP@ssw0rD";
// Path to 7zip executable
const string executablePath = "/opt/homebrew/bin/7zz";
var result = await Cli.Wrap(executablePath) // Set the path to the executable
.WithArguments(args => args
.Add("l") //Specify to list files in the archive
.Add(source7ZipFile) // Source zip file
.Add($"-p{password}") // The archive password
)
.ExecuteBufferedAsync();
// Check if the process succeeded
if (result.ExitCode != 0)
Log.Error("7-Zip failed: {Message}", result.StandardError);
else
Log.Information("Listing of files in {SourceZipFile} {Message}", source7ZipFile, result.StandardOutput);
Here we are passing the command-line tool the l argument to list files, as well as the password.
The magic is happening here:
.Add("l") //Specify to list files in the archive
.Add(source7ZipFile) // Source zip file
.Add($"-p{password}") // The archive password
The file listing is actually captured in the output, which I access using the StandardOuput property of the result.
Running the code produces the following:
[12:54:26 INF] Listing of files in /Users/rad/Projects/BlogCode/2026-01-30 - List7zFilesPassword/bin/Debug/net10.0/Books.7z
7-Zip (z) 26.00 (arm64) : Copyright (c) 1999-2026 Igor Pavlov : 2026-02-12
64-bit arm_v:8.5-A locale=UTF-8 Threads:16 OPEN_MAX:10240, ASM
Scanning the drive for archives:
1 file, 1824432 bytes (1782 KiB)
Listing archive: /Users/rad/Projects/BlogCode/2026-01-30 - List7zFilesPassword/bin/Debug/net10.0/Books.7z
--
Path = /Users/rad/Projects/BlogCode/2026-01-30 - List7zFilesPassword/bin/Debug/net10.0/Books.7z
Type = 7z
Physical Size = 1824432
Headers Size = 400
Method = LZMA2:23 7zAES
Solid = +
Blocks = 1
Date Time Attr Size Compressed Name
------------------- ----- ------------ ------------ ------------------------
2026-03-20 19:59:49 D.... 0 0 Books
2026-03-05 12:58:56 ....A 163779 1824032 Books/alice-in-wonderland.txt
2026-03-04 21:09:18 ....A 1995783 Books/brothers-karamazov.txt
2026-03-05 12:59:03 ....A 540174 Books/grimms-fairy-tales.txt
2026-03-05 12:58:24 ....A 597794 Books/huckleberry-finn.txt
2026-03-04 21:04:59 ....A 3202320 Books/war-and-peace.txt
------------------- ----- ------------ ------------ ------------------------
2026-03-20 19:59:49 6499850 1824032 5 files, 1 folders
TLDR
You can list the files in a password-protected 7-Zip archive using the 7-Zip command-line tool by passing the l and p arguments.
The code is in my GitHub.
Happy hacking!