There are several ways to extract or unzip a tar.gz file in Linux, depending on the tool you have available or prefer to use. The most common and widely supported method is to use the tar command, which can handle various compression formats, including gzip. In this article, you will learn how to extract or unzip tar.gz files in Linux using the tar command and other tools.

How to “Unzip” or Extract a Tar.gz File on Windows

Knowing how to unzip a .tar.gz file allows users to extract and access the archives’ contents efficiently. 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. If the command line isn’t your thing, there are plenty of user-friendly tools available to unzip tar.gz files.

Compress an Entire Directory or a Single File

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A TAR.GZ file is a combination of two different packaging algorithms. It’s an old utility, invented mainly for accurate data transfer to devices without their own file systems. A bitcoin could replace gold as reserve asset tar file (or tarball) contains files in a sequential format, along with metadata about the directory structure and other technical parameters. And now you can use the 7-Zip File Manager to open, view, or extract files from tar.gz and other archives.

You will also learn how to list the contents of a tar.gz file and how to create your own tar.gz archives. enterprise software 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.

List the Contents of a tar, tar.gz, tar.bz2 Files

• In most platforms, the chances are that you already possess the right application to extract and open TGZ files.
• This error occurs if you try to decompress a file without specifying a decompression utility, specifically -z for gzip.
• While Tar GZ can be opened and used on Windows and macOS with WinZip, you’re much more likely to spot the Tar GZ file format on Linux operating systems.
• Tar files are often compressed after being created, giving it the .tar.gz file extension.
• Of course, if that doesn’t work (or you just prefer a GUI tool), you can always download Unarchiver and use it to extract any type of archive files, including gzipped tarballs.

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. But with .zip being the easier of the two to use, why use .tar in the first place?

How to Extract a TAR File on Windows?

Bzip2 is slower, but it compresses a bit more, so you get a somewhat smaller file. Gzip is also more common, with some stripped-down Linux systems including gzip support by default, but not bzip2 support. In general, though, gzip and bzip2 are practically the same thing, and both will work similarly. 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 china ‘close’ to launching its own digital coin amid growing interest in facebooks libra try to decompress a file without specifying a decompression utility, specifically -z for gzip.

Simply add a space-separated list of the files you want to extract. Instead of downloading a specific application to your computer or leveraging its built-in abilities, you can extract your tar.gz archive using an online app. Many websites allow you to extract all kinds of compressed files, including ZIP and TAR files. A Tar file is an archive that consists of multiple files put into one, while GZ is a compressed file format. Thus, combining TAR and GZ into a TAR.GZ provides you with a compressed archive. By compressing several files into one Tar GZ file, you’ll be able to send multiple files as one single archived folder.

To extract a tar.gz file using the tar command, you need to use the -x option, which tells tar to extract the files from the archive. You also need to use the -z option to indicate that the archive is compressed with gzip, and the -f option to specify the file name. You will learn how to list the contents of a tar archive without unpacking it and how to extract only a single file or a single directory.

A tar.gz file is a compressed archive format commonly used in Linux systems to combine multiple files and directories into a single file while reducing their size. It combines the tar utility for archiving and the gzip utility for compression. Knowing how to extract or unzip a tar.gz file allows users to access and manipulate the archives’ contents efficiently.

For a more detailed explanation on how the tar command works, be sure to read our guide to compressing and extracting files in the Linux Terminal. 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. Since .tar.gz compresses multiple files all at once, it can take advantage of similarities between individual files to save on space. Generally speaking, a collection of files archived and compressed as a .tar.gz are more space-efficient (i.e., smaller) than the same collection compressed as a .zip. Unlike Windows’ convenient graphical user interface (GUI) for unzipping .zip files, you need to use the tar utility through the command line.