If you specify a directory, tar will recursively archive all the files and subdirectories in that directory. Decompressing TAR and TAR.GZ files is only a matter of few clicks using the GUI. This compression is lossless – that means no data is lost during the compression process, and the original files can be fully restored upon extraction. The easiest way to open a tar.gz file on Windows is to install an excellent free utility called 7-Zip, which can handle tar.gz and just about any other file format.
- You can use the -C option to extract to a different directory (in this case, /home/user/files).
- If you’re familiar with packages in Linux, you may have come across a TAR or a TAR.GZ file.
- You can create your own compressed .tar files using compression utilities such as gzip.
- Though both .zip and .tar.gz archive and compress files, they do so in different ways.
On the other hand, Windows users can rely on third-party file archiver tools like 7-zip or WinRAR to effortlessly extract files. Knowing how to unzip a .tar.gz file allows users to extract and access the archives’ contents efficiently. This error occurs when trying to extract specific files or directories from a .tar.gz file using tar.
Saving Storage and Bandwidth on Linux
The first is the -k option, and the other uses the -c option to output the compressed file to a different file, preserving the original. Thankfully, you don’t need to be a 1960s computer technician to use and extract .tar files – nor do modern .tar files even have anything to do with old computers. 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. The following article will help you to extract (unpack) and uncompress (untar) – tar, tar.gz and tar.bz2 files from the Linux command line.
Author’s note✍️
If you’re not comfortable with the terminal or command line, third-party tools such as 7-Zip offer a more user-friendly alternative. If the command line isn’t your thing, there are plenty of user-friendly tools available to unzip tar.gz files. If you want to keep the original file after compression, there are two options.
.tar.gz Files
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. The collective -xvzf flag stands for Extract, Verbose, gzip, and Filename respectively. Note that if you are working with TAR files, you can remove the -z flag from the commands. The extraction method is precisely the same for tar files that have compression, such as.tar.gz,.tar.bz2, and others.
As a result, one isn’t necessarily better than the other — it’s all a matter of application. Some of the most popular archive managers for Linux are File Roller, Ark, Xarchiver, and PeaZip. They offer more features and options than the file managers, such as creating, modifying, encrypting, and splitting archives.
For sending and storing, both .zip and .tar.gz files allows you to send relatively large packages as a single file. However, there are some pretty major differences when it comes to accessing data within the files and the compression efficiency. A “.tar” file is a collection of files compressed into a single file or archive. Short for “Tape ARchive,” the name “TAR” is a throwback to when files were stored on magnetic tape drives. The following command will extract the contents of archive.tar.gz to the current directory. If you want to create your own tar.gz file, you can use the tar command with the -c option, which tells tar to create a new archive.
You can easily unzip the resulting .tar.gz file with the decompress (-d) option. You can also add the verbose output option (-v) to provide detailed listings, including dates, securities/permissions, and more. I had a lot of fun, three years ago or so, running a bunch of tests with different compression methods, and it was very enlightening to see how various files took to compression. Now the file “four” is extracted to a new directory called “bar.” If “bar” already exists, then “four” is placed inside the existing directory. If you have an existing tarball and want to add a new file into it, you don’t have to unarchive everything just to add a new file.
Untar tar, tar.gz, tar.bx2 Files
You can install them from your distribution’s package manager or software center. 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. Most of the time, you will get your hands on a compressed package that needs extracting.
Where most operating systems make it easy to extract and create .zip files, the same can’t really be understanding hash rate said for .tar files — at least not in ways that are easy to notice. The Dolphin file manager offers a feature to autodetect whether the files extracted from an archive are contained in a directory or if a new directory needs to be created for them. I use this option so that when I extract files from a tarbomb, they remain tidy and contained. You will learn how to list the contents of a tar archive without unpacking it and how to extract only a single file or a single directory.
How to Unzip or Extract tar.gz Files on Windows
Its name implies it’s a zip utility, but it also works with tar archives, and even provides commands for the cmd command-line interface. Most file managers, such as Nautilus, Dolphin, or Thunar, support extracting tar.gz files by right-clicking on the file and choosing the Extract option from the context menu. You can also choose the destination directory where you want to extract the files. By default, tar extracts the archive contents in the current working directory.
Since .tar.gz compresses multiple files all at once, it can take advantage of similarities between individual files to save on space. Generally speaking, a collection of files archived and compressed as a .tar.gz are more space-efficient (i.e., smaller) than the same collection compressed as a .zip. Where commands have little (if any) room for typos or omissions, many common errors are the result of small mistakes, misspellings, or incorrect formats. Thankfully, unless you’re somehow missing your tar or gzip utility, most common errors are very easy to fix. It’s often useful to list the contents of a .tar.gz file without having to unzip the entire archive. Technical details aside, all you need to remember is that .zip files are more accessible but less space-efficient, while .tar files are less accessible but more space-efficient.