Stream Your Compression — a modular, pipeline-based archiver with external compressor support.
By Yade Bravo (YadeWira) · v0.2.1
SYC is a command-line compression tool that orchestrates external compressors (zstd, srep, xprecomp, zpaqfranz, lz4, and more) in a pipeline, producing .syc archives. It follows the same .ini configuration format as FreeArc, making it easy to define and chain compressors.
SYC does not compress by itself — it coordinates external tools and manages the archive format, encryption, hashing, and multi-part splitting.
Input → xprecomp → srep → zpaqfranz → output.syc
- Pipeline compression — chain any number of external compressors
- Solid mode (
-tar) — pack everything into a tar block before compressing for better ratios - Block mode (
-block SIZE) — split solid tar into independent compressed blocks for low-RAM operation - Deduplication (
-dd) — chunk-level dedup before compression, combinable with-block - Multi-part archives (
-chunk SIZE) — split output into fixed-size parts - Encryption — AES-256-GCM or ChaCha20-Poly1305 with PBKDF2 key derivation
- Hashing — optional CRC32 and MD5 per file
- Archive comments — embed a text comment with
--comment - Real-time progress — per-step percentage, MB/s speed, and elapsed time
- Low RAM usage — compress_stream pipeline never loads the tar into memory
- GUI wrapper (
sycg) — progress window with theme and language support - Archive manager (
psycg) — full WinRAR/7-Zip style manager with tree view, lazy loading, search - Partial extraction — extract specific files with
-f(flat) or-ff(full path) - InnoSetup ready — integrate with installers via
sycgand--innosetupflags - Cross-architecture — builds for x86 and x64 via
build.bat - Windows 7+ compatible — Python 3.8, no modern API dependencies
# Compress a folder
syc a backup.syc myfolder -m xpszx -tar
# Extract
syc x backup.syc -o dest
# With GUI progress window
sycg a backup.syc myfolder -m xpszx -tar
# Open archive manager
psycg
psycg backup.syc| Document | Description |
|---|---|
| Getting Started | Installation, requirements, first steps |
| CLI Reference — syc | All commands and flags for syc.exe |
| GUI Reference — sycg | Progress window flags for sycg.exe |
| Archive Manager — psycg | Full archive manager reference |
| syc.ini Configuration | Defining compressors and method chains |
| Archive Format (.syc) | Binary format specification |
| Building from Source | Using build.bat for x86/x64 |
| Language Files (.syl) | Localizing both GUIs |
| Examples & Recipes | Common use cases and patterns |
See CHANGELOG.md for the full version history.