Pyminizip

Warnings

• gotcha On Windows, `pyminizip` often requires Microsoft Visual C++ 14.0 or greater (i.e., MSVC build tools) to compile during installation, as it is a C extension wrapper. Installation via `pip` may fail without these tools installed.
  Fix: Install 'Microsoft C++ Build Tools' from Visual Studio's website or via the Visual Studio Installer if on Windows.
• gotcha The project is explicitly marked as 'Inactive' in terms of maintenance, with no new versions released in the past 12 months (as of February 2026, last release was Dec 2021) and limited community activity. This indicates a potential lack of ongoing development, security updates, or bug fixes.
  Fix: Be aware of the project's maintenance status. Consider auditing the codebase for security vulnerabilities or contributing fixes if critical issues arise.
• gotcha Users have reported issues with non-ASCII characters (e.g., Chinese filenames) in file paths leading to errors, especially on Windows platforms, due to encoding challenges in the underlying C library wrapper.
  Fix: Avoid using non-ASCII characters in file paths for compression or decompression with `pyminizip`, especially on Windows.
• gotcha On Linux environments, `pyminizip` may encounter `ImportError` due to 'GLIBC_2.33' (or similar) not found errors. This typically indicates a mismatch between the GLIBC version used to compile the library and the GLIBC version available on the target system, common in containerized or diverse Linux environments.
  Fix: Ensure that the `pyminizip` package is built or installed in an environment with a GLIBC version compatible with your deployment target. Building from source in the target environment or using a compatible base image in containers might resolve this.
• gotcha Despite reaching version 0.2.6, the PyPI classifiers for `pyminizip` indicate its development status as '3 - Alpha'. This suggests the maintainer considers the project to be in an early, experimental stage, implying potential instability or API changes without strict adherence to semantic versioning.
  Fix: Use with caution in production environments, and thoroughly test for stability. Be prepared for potential breaking changes or unexpected behavior.

Install

• pip install pyminizip Install latest version

Imports

• pyminizip

  import pyminizip

Quickstart

This quickstart demonstrates how to compress a single file into a password-protected ZIP archive and then uncompress it using `pyminizip`.

import pyminizip
import os

# Create dummy files for demonstration
with open("file1.txt", "w") as f:
    f.write("This is file one.")

zip_filename = "my_archive.zip"
password = "supersecretpassword"
extract_dir = "extracted_files"

# 1. Compress a single file with password
pyminizip.compress(
    "file1.txt",
    None, # Prefix path (None to use relative path)
    zip_filename,
    password,
    5 # Compression level (0 for default, 1-9 for speed/compression balance)
)
print(f"'{zip_filename}' created with password protection from 'file1.txt'.")

# 2. Extract the password-protected zip
os.makedirs(extract_dir, exist_ok=True)
pyminizip.uncompress(
    zip_filename,
    password,
    extract_dir,
    0 # Not specifying 'withoutpath'
)
print(f"'{zip_filename}' uncompressed to '{extract_dir}'.")

# Clean up dummy files and directories
os.remove("file1.txt")
os.remove(zip_filename)
os.remove(os.path.join(extract_dir, "file1.txt"))
os.rmdir(extract_dir)

print("Cleanup complete.")