i have python libarchive 0.4.3 installed. i'd mtime of 7z file stored inside 7z file. different mtime of file stored locally on disk. let's underlying source c tarball lzma1604.7z. the following program list of files , mtime of that. don't see time entire 7z "tarball" given in 7z file. from libarchive.public import memory_reader open('lzma1604.7z', 'rb') f: buffer = f.read() memory_reader(buffer) archive: entry in archive: print(entry.pathname, entry.mtime) the above program prints: ('asm/arm/7zcrcopt.asm', datetime.datetime(2009, 10, 8, 5, 12)) ('asm/x86/7zasm.asm', datetime.datetime(2012, 12, 30, 3, 41, 54)) ... ('bin/7zsd.sfx', datetime.datetime(2016, 10, 4, 11, 12, 31)) ('bin/lzma.exe', datetime.datetime(2016, 10, 4, 11, 12, 30)) ('bin/x64/7zr.exe', datetime.datetime(2016, 10, 4, 10, 58, 29)) but if run 7z l lzma1604.7z gives @ end: 2016-10-04 10:12:31 ....a