How to Extract Files From a tar.bz2 or .tar.gz File on Linux

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. Alternatively, you can also specify a source and destination file path when using the tar utility.

When the archive is extracted, these attributes are restored. That means they maintain their original characteristics. For those that don’t like using a terminal, you’ll be delighted to hear that macOS can open tar and tar.gz files by default with the Archive Utility.

Is .gz a .tar file?

Then we’ll jump into the step-by-step process of unzipping on both Linux and Windows platforms. 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. The Ubuntu logo, often called the “Circle of Friends,” comprises three people holding hands. It signifies the strong sense of community and interconnectedness at the core of Ubuntu’s philosophy. Canonical released its first official version of the OS, Ubuntu 4.10, codenamed ‘Warty Warthog’ in October 2004.

How to List Contents of .tar.gz File in Linux

Thankfully, you don’t need to be a 1960s computer technician to use and extract .tar files – nor do modern .tar files 12 best crypto exchanges in the uk 2021 even have anything to do with old computers. 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. Starting from Windows 10 build 17063, tar and curl are supported, therefore it is possible to unzip a .tar.gz file in one step by using tar command, as below.

Choosing Where to Extract the Files To

However, tar was unable to find FILE within .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. This error occurs when trying to extract specific files or directories from a .tar.gz file using tar. If the command line isn’t your thing, there are plenty of user-friendly tools available to unzip tar.gz files. But with .zip being the easier of the two to use, why use .tar in the first place? The next section shows how .tar comes with a few extra features that make it the better compression format for certain files and applications.

The number represents how many levels of directories to ignore. Files from the ignored directories are still extracted, but the directory best web development tools of 2022 structure is not replicated on your hard drive. So far we’ve just taken a leap of faith and extracted the files sight unseen. You can review the contents of a tar file before you extract it by using the -t (list) option.

1. This error occurs if you try to decompress a file without specifying a decompression utility, specifically -z for gzip.
2. This is because most versions of tar allow both gnu and bsd style options (simplistically, gnu requires a hyphen, bsd doesn’t).
3. While there are many tools to choose from, the most popular include 7-Zip and WinZip.
4. WinRar opens them in one step but is slightly clunkier to use.
5. This simplifies file management and reduces the risk of data loss during transfers.

A GUI is more suitable for beginners than a command-line tool. It’s easy to get confused when navigating between .tar, .tar.gz, and .gz – not to mention zipping and unzipping them. Here are a few frequently asked questions we commonly hear from users working with .tar.gz files. This error occurs if you try to decompress a file without specifying a decompression utility, specifically -z for gzip. Some third-party tools also offer extended flexibility for converting between file types‌, saving more time if you want to change between compression formats. Note that this command will throw an error unless you specify the exact filename listed in the .tar file.

Unzip .tar.gz from stdin in Linux

The .gz or .bz2 extension suffix indicates that the archive has been compressed, using either the gzip or bzip2 compression algorithm. The tar command will work how to read rsi crypto happily with both types 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 experienced users know what is a TAR file and how to extract it, Linux newbies might face some difficulties in figuring out what to do with it. As the files are extracted, they are listed in the terminal window. You can notice in the above image that the archive files are extracted in the same working directory.

You can also use The Unarchiver, which is a free tool for managing archives, functions just like the Archive Utility, and supports .rar files as well. You can also add the verbose output option (-v) to provide detailed listings, including dates, securities/permissions, and more. The -C option is used to specify a different directory other than the current working directory.

From videos to entire software packages, many files are compressed and stored using the .tar.gz format. While extracting a .tar.gz file isn’t quite as easy as unzipping a .zip, it’s still pretty straightforward. 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. To do this we’ll use almost exactly the same command as before but with one important difference.

Simply add a space-separated list of the files you want to extract. 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. As a result, one isn’t necessarily better than the other — it’s all a matter of application. 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. If you don’t want the directory structure in the tar file to be recreated on your hard drive, use the –strip-components option. The –strip-components option requires a numerical parameter.

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. You can also use –wildcards to extract all files with a certain extension or name. Otherwise, keep reading to learn how to unzip .tar.gz files in Linux, macOS, and Windows. I am using 7zip v19.00, just right click and choose extract here will do the work.