How to Extract Files From a tar.bz2 or .tar.gz File on Linux
The next section shows how .tar lend to aave migration comes with a few extra features that make it the better compression format for certain files and applications. 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 because most versions of tar allow both gnu and bsd style options (simplistically, gnu requires a hyphen, bsd doesn’t). 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’ll probably have to install the “other” tar (whatever that may be on your system) manually.
- However, there are some pretty major differences when it comes to accessing data within the files and the compression efficiency.
- A user-friendly way to extract files from a .tar.gz archive is via a Graphical User Interface (GUI).
- You may want to extract the contents of the archive to a specific directory.
How to Extract Files From a .tar.bz2 or .tar.gz File on Linux
Notice that we don’t need to use the -z option to list the files. We only need to add the -z option when we’re extracting files from a .tar.gz file. Likewise, we don’t need the -j option to list the files in a tar.bz2 file. If we want to extract the files to a location other than the current directory, we can specify a target directory using the -C (specified directory) option.
Extracting .tar.gz Files for Windows
The -p (parents) option causes mkdir to create any parent directories that are required, ensuring the target directory is created. As the files are extracted, they are listed in the terminal window. It also integrates with using algorithms to trade in crypto currencies the Windows Explorer context menu, which enables users to create and extract archives directly from the right-click menu.
The tar command will work happily with both types best security practices for your deribit account of file, so it doesn’t matter which compression method was used — and it should be available everywhere you have a Bash shell. You just need to use the appropriate tar command line options. 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. You can create your own compressed .tar files using compression utilities such as gzip.
Extracting Files from Tar Files
The command includes a large number of additional options, so we can’t possibly list them all here. Run the info tar command at the shell to view the tar command’s detailed information page. Press the q key to quit the information page when you’re done. 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.
While slightly different, they are quite lightweight and offer a much simpler alternative to using the command line. Connect and share knowledge within a single location that is structured and easy to search.
Add a file or directory to an existing tarball
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. The .gz or .bz2 extension suffix indicates that the archive has been compressed, using either the gzip or bzip2 compression algorithm.
You can easily extract .tar.gz files using third-party tools like 7 zip and Winrar on the Windows system. Any remotely modern version of tar should auto-detect that the archive is gzipped, and add “z” for you. 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. 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.
As we cover more in the next section, you can verify file names by listing contents with the tar -tf filename.tar.gz command. Compressing and extracting these files, however, isn’t always intuitive. This article provides detailed guides to unzip .tar.gz files in Linux and Windows, as well as a few helpful tips and tricks. The command extracts files to a new directory called example1, which is located in the current directory. A user-friendly way to extract files from a .tar.gz archive is via a Graphical User Interface (GUI). A GUI is more suitable for beginners than a command-line tool.
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. Most Linux and BSD desktops come with a graphical archive utility. The most often used algorithm for compressing tar files is Gzip. By convention, the name of a tar archive compressed with gzip becomes .tar.gz or .tgz.
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. I am using 7zip v19.00, just right click and choose extract here will do the work. Although 7zip issues warning, the result is fine for me. Ubuntu Core is a minimalistic and immutable version explicitly designed for the Internet of Things (IoT) and embedded systems. It is based on Ubuntu and tailored for use in scenarios where reliability, security, and ease of maintenance are critical, relying on the Snap package and atomic transactional updates.
A file with just a .tar extension is uncompressed, but those will be very rare. You can notice in the above image that the archive files are extracted in the same working directory. This compression is lossless – that means no data is lost during the compression process, and the original files can be fully restored upon extraction. You can open most .tar.gz files using the tar command built in to Linux, macOS, and Windows 10. If you’re not comfortable with the terminal or command line, third-party tools such as 7-Zip offer a more user-friendly alternative. It’s easy to get confused when navigating between .tar, .tar.gz, and .gz – not to mention zipping and unzipping them.
