How to Customize 7-Zip Context Menu Items

The 7-Zip file archiver allows users to tailor its presence within the Windows File Explorer right-click context menu. By accessing the program's options, you can toggle specific extraction, compression, testing, and checksum entries on or off, as well as configure whether these actions appear in a cascading sub-menu or directly in the main context menu.

Accessing Context Menu Settings in 7-Zip

To modify context menu entries:

  1. Open 7-Zip File Manager.
  2. Click Tools in the top menu and select Options.
  3. Select the 7-Zip tab.

General Context Menu Controls

Before choosing individual actions, several top-level options define how 7-Zip integrates with Windows:

  • Integrate 7-Zip to shell context menu: Enables or disables the presence of 7-Zip options in the Windows right-click menu entirely.
  • Cascaded context menu: When checked, places all selected 7-Zip actions inside a single "7-Zip" sub-menu. When unchecked, the items are displayed directly on the main right-click menu.
  • Icons in context menu: Displays the 7-Zip icon next to the context menu entries for visual identification.

Customizable Context Menu Entries

Under the Context menu items list, you can check or uncheck individual operations depending on your workflow:

Extraction and Viewing Options

  • Open archive: Opens the selected archive inside the 7-Zip File Manager interface.
  • Open archive (>): Allows browsing inside the archive directly through nested context menu folders without opening the main application window.
  • Extract files...: Opens the extraction dialogue window, allowing you to choose a destination path and configure extraction parameters.
  • Extract Here: Unpacks the archive contents immediately into the current directory.
  • Extract to <Folder>: Automatically creates a new folder named after the archive and unpacks the contents inside it.

Archive Creation Options

  • Add to archive...: Launches the configuration window where you can select compression levels, encryption, splitting options, and archive formats.
  • Add to <Archive>.7z: Immediately compresses the selected file or folder into a .7z file using default settings.
  • Add to <Archive>.zip: Immediately compresses the selected file or folder into a standard .zip file using default settings.

Email Integration Options

  • Compress and email...: Opens the compression settings window and attaches the resulting archive to a new email in your default mail client.
  • Compress to <Archive>.7z and email: Creates a .7z archive using default settings and immediately attaches it to a new email draft.
  • Compress to <Archive>.zip and email: Creates a .zip archive using default settings and immediately attaches it to a new email draft.

Integrity and Verification Options

  • Test archive: Verifies the integrity of the selected archive file to ensure it is not corrupted.
  • CRC SHA >: Adds a sub-menu that allows generating cryptographic checksums for any file, including CRC-32, CRC-64, SHA-1, SHA-256, and generic wildcard hashes (*).

After checking your preferred options, click Apply and then OK to update your system's context menu.