Installation

First, install the required software.

1. Python >= 3.12 from https://www.python.org/

Now install the application.

1. Installation with pip

   If you have pip installed, run pip install patool. To install pip, run python -m ensurepip.

2. Installation on Linux

   Several Linux distributions have packaged patool, for example Debian, Arch or Fedora.

   Look at the installation instructions for the patool package of your distribution. But you can also use the pip installation above.

3. Installation on Windows

   See installation with pip above.

   On Windows systems, the archive type is only detectable through file extensions. To be able to detect archives with missing or non-standard file extensions, you have to install the file package from cygwin.

   For patool search, the grep program is needed. For patool diff, the diff program is needed.

   a) Download the cygwin installer setup-x86_64.exe

   b) Run setup-x86_64.exe -q -p file,grep,diff

   c) Add c:\cygwin64\bin directory to your PATH

4. Installation in MacOS

   See installation with pip above. There is not yet a homebrew formula for patool that I know of.

Suggested archive programs

Installing the following programs lets patool support a wide variety of archive formats.

7-zip supports a lot of formats, installing it is often sufficient for most users.

Peazip also supports a lot of archive formats.

To handle RAR files install either peazip or the 7zip-rar package.

For more unusual formats (eg. bzip3) see the ArchivePrograms configuration at patoolib/init.py. For each archive format the programs that support extracting, listing or creating archive files are listed.