Helix Core is now P4. Product user interfaces will be updated soon. Learn more >>

P4 Server Administration Documentation | 2025.2

# Efficient compression

There are cases where compression is automatically handled:

- By default, revisions of files of type `binary` are compressed when stored on the P4 Server. Some file formats (for example, .GIF and .JPG images, .MPG and .AVI media content, files compressed with `.gz` compression) include compression as part of the file format.

  Attempting to compress such files on the P4 Server results in the consumption of server CPU resources with little or no savings in disk space. To disable server storage compression for these file types, specify such files as type `binary+F` (binary, stored on the server in full, without compression) either from the command line or from the `p4 typemap` table.

  For more about `p4 typemap`, including a sample typemap table, see Define filetypes with p4 typemap.

- By default compression is enabled between the P4 Server and the proxy. If this connection is going across a VPN that is already doing compression at a lower layer, you might want to disable the compression for the proxy (`-c` flag).

Your search for returned results