English Japanese

How to Open an LZH File on Windows 11 and Mac

An .lzh (or .lha) file is an archive made with LHA, the compression tool that was standard in Japan through the 1990s and 2000s. Current Windows and macOS cannot open it, but it is easy to extract, and it is safe as long as you do not run what comes out of it.

.lzh .lha
Open it on this site

Why it will not open

  • Windows dropped it. Japanese editions of Windows 7 through Windows 10 version 1607 could extract LZH out of the box; version 1703 (the 2017 Creators Update) removed the feature, so Windows 10 and 11 today only ask which app to use. XP and Vista needed a free Microsoft add-on.
  • macOS never had it. Archive Utility opens ZIP, gzip and a few others, not LZH.
  • The format was retired. In 2010 the maintainer of UNLHA32.DLL, the library behind most Windows LZH tools, announced the end of development and asked people to stop using LZH. Files still exist; new tools rarely bother.

How to open it

In the browser, nothing to install

  1. 1 Drop the .lzh file into the LZH extractor on this site. The file list appears at once; Japanese file names are decoded correctly.
  2. 2 Save the files you need one by one, or "Save all as ZIP" to get a ZIP that opens on any system.
  3. 3 Nothing is uploaded: the archive is read in your browser.

Windows: 7-Zip, Lhaplus or Explzh

  1. 1 7-Zip (free, 7-zip.org) opens LZH: right-click the file → 7-Zip → Extract Here.
  2. 2 Lhaplus and Explzh are the Japanese archivers most offices already have; both open LZH and handle Shift_JIS names.
  3. 3 If you cannot install software on the PC, use the browser method above.

macOS: The Unarchiver

  1. 1 Install The Unarchiver from the App Store (free). It opens LZH and decodes the Japanese names.
  2. 2 Double-click the .lzh file; if it still opens with Archive Utility, right-click → Open With → The Unarchiver.

Why the names may come out garbled

LHA wrote file names in Shift_JIS, the Japanese encoding of the DOS and Windows era. A tool that assumes UTF-8 shows them as nonsense or drops them. 7-Zip, Lhaplus, Explzh, The Unarchiver and the extractor on this site all read Shift_JIS names correctly.

Do not send new files as LZH

ZIP is built into every system and supports the same content. The 2010 retirement was prompted by a real problem: crafted LZH headers could slip past antivirus scanners. Extracting an LZH you received is fine; creating new ones is not worth the trouble it causes the recipient.

Not sure what your file is? Identify it

Frequently Asked Questions

Is .lha the same as .lzh?
Yes. LHA is the program, and its archives were named .lzh on DOS and Windows and often .lha on Amiga and Unix. The contents are the same format.
Can Windows 11 open LZH without extra software?
No. Built-in extraction existed in Japanese editions from Windows 7 to Windows 10 version 1607 and was removed in version 1703. Use the browser extractor here, or install 7-Zip.
Is it safe to open an LZH file?
Extracting it is safe. What you then do with the extracted files is the usual question — do not run a program from an archive you did not expect.
Why do I still receive LZH files?
Some public offices, older systems and long-standing partners in Japan never changed their process. The files are usually documents or images; extract them and reply with a ZIP if you need to send anything back.

Related articles

Why a ZIP File Will Not Open, and How to Fix Each Cause

A ZIP that refuses to open has one of six causes: a truncated download, a password, a split archive, garbled names, a file that is not really a ZIP, or an archiver too old for it. How to tell which, and what to do about each.

Why File Names in a ZIP Come Out Garbled, and How to Fix Them

Unzip a file from a Japanese colleague and the names read 縺ｯ縺ｾ縺 — or a ZIP made on a Mac garbles on Windows. ZIP never recorded the encoding of names. What each system writes, which tools guess right, and how to re-save the archive so it opens anywhere.