How to Extract or Unzip tar.gz Files in Linux

It’ll also compress every other directory inside a directory you specify — in other words, it works recursively. This is good and pretty comprehensive, Seth.One thing to point out is that, since .jpg and .png files are already compressed, you won’t get much compression with gzip. You can specify one or more files or directories to include in the archive. If you specify a directory, tar will recursively archive all the files and subdirectories in that directory. As the files are extracted, they are listed in the terminal window. One file is called ukulele_songs.tar.gz , the other is called guitar_songs.tar.bz2 .

In other words, .zip files are a collection of compressed files, while .tar files are a compressed collection of files. People new to the tar format usually equate it to a .zip file, but a tar archive is notably not compressed. The tar format only creates a container for files, but the files can be compressed with separate utilities. Common compressions applied to a .tar file are Gzip, bzip2, and xz. That’s why you rarely see just a .tar file and more commonly encounter .tar.gz or .tgz files.

It also integrates with the Windows Explorer context menu, which enables users to create and extract archives directly from the right-click menu. You can easily extract .tar.gz files using third-party tools like 7 zip and Winrar on the Windows system. But it does not compress the data, which results in a larger file size compared to compressed formats.

How to Create a tar.gz File in Linux

You may want to extract the contents of the archive to a specific directory. You can do so by appending the -C switch to the end of the command. For example, the following command will extract the contents of the archive.tar.gz file to the /tmp directory. On the other hand, Windows users can rely on third-party file archiver tools like 7-zip or WinRAR to effortlessly extract files. Given this structure, the site admin could extract your incoming archive directly to the server’s root directory.

Using the tar Utility

You can also extract only specific files or directories from a tar.gz archive, by providing their names after the archive name. You need to use the exact names and paths as listed by the tar -t command. If you want to see the progress of the extraction, you can use the -v option, which makes the tar command more verbose and prints the names of the files being extracted. So far we’ve just taken a leap of faith and extracted the files sight unseen.

Once you’ve done this successfully, you’ll notice that the icon for tar.gz files will change to a 7-Zip icon. However, while tools like 7-Zip are free, many more “robust” solutions are only available for a price after a trial period. As a result, we recommend sticking to free (but trustworthy) tools or simply betting sites with bitcoin betting sites accepting bitcoin using the command line. To access the Windows command line, search for “command prompt” or “cmd” in the search bar. Right-click the first result and select the “Run as administrator” option.

What is a Tar.gz File?

Some common examples include .tar.bz2 (bzip2), .tar.br (Brotli), and .tar.zst (zstd), among many others. Where most operating systems make it easy to extract and create .zip files, the same can’t really be said for .tar files — at least not in ways that are easy to notice. From videos to entire software packages, many files are compressed and stored using the .tar.gz format. While extracting a .tar.gz file isn’t quite as easy as unzipping a .zip, it’s still pretty straightforward.

There are several ways to extract or unzip a tar.gz file in Linux, depending on the tool you have available or prefer to use. The most common and widely supported method is to use the tar command, which can handle various compression formats, including gzip. To do this we’ll use almost exactly the same command as before but with one important difference.

1. This is because most versions of tar allow both gnu and bsd style options (simplistically, gnu requires a hyphen, bsd doesn’t).
2. Once you have an archive, you can extract it with the tar command.
3. While there are many tools to choose from, the most popular include 7-Zip and WinZip.
4. The tar format only creates a container for files, but the files can be compressed with separate utilities.
5. That’s why the resulting file is a .tar.gz file or .tar.bz2 file.

And now you can use the 7-Zip File Manager to open, view, or extract files from tar.gz and other archives. If you want a specific file, you can drill down into the folder, or you can simply click the “Extract” button and choose a location to put all the files. Like the tar utility, gzip also allows you to zip and unzip multiple files or entire directories at a time. Though gzip is the most common compression utility, it’s not the only how to buy bitcoin in the uk in 2021 one. As you might imagine, using a different compression utility on a .tar file will result in a different double extension.

The .bz2 extension suffix tells us it has been compressed using the bzip2 command. Instead of using the-z (gzip) option, we will use the -j (bzip2) option to unzip the bz2 file. When you want to share what is the difference between a white label and main label forex broker multiple files with someone else, compressing those files into a single TAR archive is the most efficient solution. Apart from occupying less space on your system storage, compressed archives utilize less server bandwidth when downloaded by multiple users. The GNU tar command included with Linux distributions has integrated compression. It can create a .tar archive and then compress it with gzip or bzip2 compression in a single command.