This guide covered various commands for decompressing files and directories using the “gunzip” utility that are compressed by the “gzip” command. Though both .zip and .tar.gz archive and compress files, they do so in different ways. In other words, .zip is a collection of compressed files, while .tar.gz is a compressed collection of files. Where .zip files consist of many individually compressed files, .tar files are compressed as a single package, leaving its files uncompressed.
As we’ll see later, different compression utilities may require different methods for extracting and unzipping files. Though we’ll mostly focus on .tar.gz files, check out the end of the article for some quick tips on extracting .tar files in other formats. The “gunzip” command is one of the best algorithms used by Linux enthusiasts for file decompression.
- That said, even if you are on another system, you will still be able to open these files, just the methods will be different.
- Unlike Windows’ convenient graphical user interface (GUI) for unzipping .zip files, you’ll need to use the tar utility through the command line.
- Note that this command also works with other common compression formats such as .tar.bz2.
- Here are a few frequently asked questions we commonly hear from users working with .tar.gz files.
During this process, the compressed file is seamlessly replaced with its uncompressed version. While Gunzip can even compress a file or directory, it is primarily renowned for its proficiency in decompression tasks. If you want to interact with these files, you’ll need to know how to extract a GZ file in Linux—here’s how. This error occurs if you try to decompress a file without specifying a decompression utility, specifically -z for gzip. 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.
As we’ll cover more in the next section, you can verify file names by listing contents with the tar -tf filename.tar.gz command. Again, the above commands will extract to the current working directory by default. You can use the -C option to extract to a different directory (in this case, /home/user/files). Of course, that’s not to say .tar files are some kind of “lesser” format than .zip. Rather, they both accomplish the same task (file compression) in the same way. Sometimes, you may need to decompress a file while a decompressed file of the same name already exists in the directory.
Troubleshooting Common Errors
As we have seen over the course of this article, xz files are nothing special. Most of the newer graphical distros like Ubuntu and Linux Mint come with built in tools to decompress files using a GUI. The “gunzip” command provides a “-l” flag which displays the information about the compressed file without necessitating its decompression. This information best bitcoin exchanges of 2021 might be the size of the original file, the size of a compressed file, the name of the actual file, and the ratio of compression. You can create your own compressed .tar files using compression utilities such as gzip. Gzip is one of the most popular and available options, especially since it comes built in to most Linux distributions and macOS.
How to Unzip Gzip File to Standard Output
This will decompress the “singleFile.gz” file and restore the original file named “singleFile”. To verify if your file is decompressed, simply execute the “ls” command. If you want to work with gzip files, the steps above should help you to compress and decompress them on a Linux PC. This error occurs when trying to extract specific files or directories from a .tar.gz file using tar. You can just as easily unzip the resulting .tar.gz file with the decompress (-d) option.
If you have an error which is not present in the article, or if you know a better solution, please help us to improve this guide. That being the case, we would like to recommend you try out WinZip, the world’s best file archiver and unzipper. However, while tools like 7-Zip are free, many more “robust” solutions are only available for a price after a trial period.
You’ll see a number of options, including Open With Archive Manager, Extract Here, and Extract to. If you need to compress a file, once again use the command gzip, but without any options other than the file you want to compress. If you’re using a Linux PC, you’ll need to open a file or folder that’s been compressed to take less disk space from time to time. This is done to save room or to let you upload or download a file faster.
Method 1: Using the gzip command
This will display comprehensive information about the “ubuntuMintFile” file. Once you choose the directory, click the Select button in the top right corner. This is simpler than you think, so without further ado, let’s get started.
Most Linux distributions and macOS include built-in tools for zipping and unzipping .tar and .tar.gz files. While the tar utility is enough for most purposes, you’ll need the gzip utility to create .tar.gz files. With the command prompt kyma sto phos reviews and deals open, use the appropriate commands to change the current working directory (cd) to the location of the .tar.gz file you want to unzip. Alternatively, you can also specify a source and destination file path when using the tar utility.
As a result, one isn’t necessarily better than the other — it’s all a matter of application. For sending and storing, both .zip and .tar.gz files will allow 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. To address this situation, the “gunzip” command provides the “-f” or “–force” flag, which empowers you to forcefully decompress the file with a “.gz” extension. At times, you may need to decompress multiple files all at once by specifying the names of the .gz files you intend to decompress.
Note that this command also works with other common compression formats such as .tar.bz2. Though gzip is the most common compression utility, it’s not the only one. As you might imagine, using a different compression utility on a .tar file will result in a different double extension. Some common examples include .tar.bz2 (bzip2), .tar.br (Brotli), and .tar.zst (zstd), among many others.
This error usually occurs when a .tar has been saved as a .gz despite having never been compressed using the gzip utility. Executing this command will effectively decompress the specified files, creating new decompressed versions while cgi trade360 pricing cost and reviews retaining the original compressed files intact. To confirm the change, display all the files in the current directory. This command will extract (-x) the file (-f) specified (in this case, filename.tar.gz) to the current directory.
In other words, .zip files are a collection of compressed files, while .tar files are a compressed collection of files. If you have been on Linux for sometime you might have come across another file extension .tar.gz. This overcomes the big limitation of standard gz, and allows for compression of entire folders. It’s important to note, the gzip algorithm is designed to compress a single file. If you need to bundle multiple files together, or an entire directory structure, you’ll use both tar and gz.
Like the tar utility, gzip also allows you to zip and unzip multiple files or entire directories at a time. 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. Knowing how to unzip a .tar.gz file allows users to extract and access the archives’ contents efficiently. Note that this command will throw an error unless you specify the exact filename listed in the .tar file.
As a result, we recommend sticking to free (but trustworthy) tools or simply using the command line. While there are many tools to choose from, the most popular include 7-Zip and WinZip. While slightly different, they are quite lightweight and offer a much simpler alternative to using the command line. Once you’ve followed these steps, the file’s content should now be extracted in the location of your choosing.