Use the following command to compress an entire directory or a single file on Linux. It’ll also compress every other directory inside a directory you specify — in other words, it works recursively. The former encodes your file in a sequential archive format suitable for magnetic tapes, while the latter compresses it to a smaller size. After reading this article, you know how to extract or should you invest in bitcoin unzip .tar.gz file in Linux using different methods and tools. In this guide, you will learn how to extract or unzip .tar.gz files in Linux. You can open most .tar.gz files using the tar command built in to Linux, macOS, and Windows 10.

Using the command line (cmd)

This allows you to create bzip2-compressed files, often named .tar.bz2, .tar.bz, or .tbz files. To do so, just replace the -z for gzip in the commands here with a -j for bzip2. This error usually occurs when a .tar has been saved as a .gz despite having never been compressed using the gzip utility. It may sound like a silly mistake, but it’s surprisingly common in situations where users directly rename files and their extensions (such as .tar and .gz) in the process. With the command prompt open, use the appropriate commands to change the current working directory (cd) to the location of the .tar.gz file you want to unzip.

How to Extract/Unzip .tar.gz Files: Step-by-Step Windows and Linux Guide

It offers AES-256 encryption to protect sensitive data within archives. Users can utilize the 7-zip command-line interface for automated & scripted extraction tasks. 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. The tar command also provides support for extracting only specific files or directories metatrader 4 white label trading platform from a .tar.gz file.

While the file manager in most distributions can work with tar.gz, there are cases where you need a more powerful tool to do the job. Xarchiver is a highly flexible graphical program that can unzip archives and portable package formats in Linux. The biggest advantage of tar.gz files is that they are more compact and easier to handle than other compressed archive formats. On the other hand, Windows users can rely on third-party file archiver tools like 7-zip or WinRAR to effortlessly extract files. Some third-party tools also offer extended flexibility for converting between file types‌, saving more time if you want to change between compression formats.

1. Unpack is a simple third-party Bash wrapper script that allows you to unzip almost any type of modern archive format in Linux.
2. Once you’ve selected the right file, you’ll see “7-Zip File Manager” show up in the select app dialog.
3. The tar command is extremely powerful, and you can do things like list or search for files in a tar archive, or extract a single file.
4. It just bundles files & directories together while preserving their file structure and metadata.

Unzip Tar.gz Files Using the Command Line

Unlike Windows’ convenient graphical user interface (GUI) for unzipping .zip files, you need to use the tar utility through the command line. However, there are also many third-party tools you can install for a more user-friendly experience. 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. While gzip compression is most frequently used to create .tar.gz or .tgz files, tar also supports bzip2 compression.

Simply add a space-separated list of the files you want to extract. Unpack is a simple third-party Bash wrapper script that allows you to unzip almost any type of modern archive format in Linux. Unlike tar and Xarchiver, it aims to be a simple, single command solution to extract Tar.gz files. In Linux, users have multiple ways to extract .tar.gz files – through the terminal and graphical file archivers. This error occurs if you try to decompress a file without specifying a decompression utility, specifically -z for gzip. Again, the above command extracts to the current working directory by default.

It can create a .tar archive and then compress it with gzip or bzip2 compression in a single command. That’s why the resulting file is a .tar.gz file or .tar.bz2 file. When you extract files from a .tar.gz archive, the checksum is automatically verified to detect & handle any potential data corruption. 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. 7-Zip is a free and open-source tool with high compression ratios & supports a wide range of archive formats.

On Windows, you can extract and create .tar archives with the free 7-Zip utility. Where .zip files consist of many individually compressed files, .tar files are compressed as a single package, leaving its files uncompressed. In other words, .zip files are a collection of compressed files, while .tar files are a compressed collection of files.

Tar.gz has become the standard format used for distributing Linux and open source software since it’s easy to extract on basically any platform how long does it take to mine bitcoin cryptocurrency that isn’t Windows. If you plan to distribute and store .tar.gz files on your website, Kinsta’s managed hosting services can help make the most of your space. 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 using the command line. To access the Windows command line, search for “command prompt” or “cmd” in the search bar.

To unzip the .tar.gz files, you’ll need to use specific commands and tools depending on your operating system. Let’s explore the extraction process for both Linux & Windows platforms. A user-friendly way to extract files from a .tar.gz archive is via a Graphical User Interface (GUI). Knowing how to unzip a .tar.gz file allows users to extract and access the archives’ contents efficiently. It’s easy to get confused when navigating between .tar, .tar.gz, and .gz – not to mention zipping and unzipping them.