How to Unzip or Extract tar gz Files on Windows


tar.gz how to unzip

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Compress Multiple Directories or Files at Once

Here are a few frequently asked questions we commonly hear from users working with .tar.gz files. This error occurs when trying how to buy feg token to extract specific files or directories from a .tar.gz file using tar. 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. But with .zip being the easier of the two to use, why use .tar in the first place?

tar.gz how to unzip

Extract a Tar File

You can notice in the above image that the archive files are extracted in the same working directory. This format is common in the Unix/Linux world and is widely used to create compressed archives. But it does not compress the data, which results in a larger file size compared to compressed formats. 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.

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  1. You’ll want to replace “tarfile” with the path to the tar.gz file that you’re trying to extract.
  2. The command includes a large number of additional options, so we can’t possibly list them all here.
  3. The tar command also provides support for extracting only specific files or directories from a .tar.gz file.
  4. Though we mostly focus on .tar.gz files, check out the end of the article for some quick tips on extracting .tar files in other formats.

If you’re not comfortable with the terminal or command line, third-party tools such as 7-Zip offer a more user-friendly alternative. In this example, the user tried to extract the file titled “FILE” from filename.tar.gz. However, tar was unable to find FILE within what does a security specialist do .tar.gz, meaning that the user either misspelled the name or that the file simply doesn’t exist in filename.tar.gz. Another common cause of errors is case sensitivity, where Linux treats “FILE” and “file” as two separate entities.

If you want to keep the original file after compression, there are two options. 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. You can easily unzip the resulting .tar.gz file with the decompress (-d) option. 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.

In some cases, you may wish to compress an entire directory, but not include certain files and directories. You can do so by appending an –exclude switch for each directory buying crypto in 2021 | gide for begginers or file you want to exclude. To unzip a tar.gz file on Windows, you can either download the 7zip archive utility or install Linux through the WSL. Whether you prefer command-line tools or graphical file archivers, the extraction process is pretty simple.

This specifies you want to extract an archive instead of create one. Connect and share knowledge within a single location that is structured and easy to search. You may also be interested in learning about the best WinZip alternatives to compress files.

WinRAR is a popular file compression & archive utility software. While every tar.gz file is a .tar archive, not every .gz is a .tar file. The .gz extension represents the gzip compression format, which can be applied to almost any file format to compress data and save space. Just like the more familiar .zip files, .tar files compress large files into a single package, making it easier to store and send them through email, servers, and so on. As a result, it has become a common file extension for many open-source software packages and other resources.