You can use the -C option to extract to a different directory (in this case, /home/user/files). On the other hand, Windows users can rely on third-party file archiver tools like 7-zip or WinRAR to effortlessly extract files. Knowing how to unzip a .tar.gz file allows users to extract and how to buy elonone access the archives’ contents efficiently. The biggest advantage of tar.gz files is that they are more compact and easier to handle than other compressed archive formats. Given this structure, the site admin could extract your incoming archive directly to the server’s root directory.
- Knowing how to unzip a .tar.gz file allows users to extract and access the archives’ contents efficiently.
- In this guide, you will learn how to extract or unzip .tar.gz files in Linux.
- Short for “Tape ARchive,” the name “TAR” is a throwback to when files were stored on magnetic tape drives.
- Given this structure, the site admin could extract your incoming archive directly to the server’s root directory.
- Note that this command also works with other common compression formats such as .tar.bz2.
Usually, tar files are more common with Ubuntu (other Linux distros) and macOS users for data archival and backups. However, Windows 10 users may also come across these files, which is a reason to have a way to extract their contents. A file using .tar.gz format is a file that has been created using the Unix-based archival application tar and then compressed using the gzip compression.
Xarchiver is a highly flexible graphical program that can unzip archives and portable package formats in Linux. 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. In the shell, you can add a file or directory to a tar archive as long as it is not compressed. If your archive has been compressed, you must uncompress it, but you do not need to unarchive it. It’s easy to get confused when navigating between .tar, .tar.gz, and .gz – not to mention zipping and unzipping them.
The tar utility autodetects the existence of /var/ as well as the subdirectories store, deals, and images, and distributes the files into the proper directories. 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. As we’ll cover more in the next section, you can verify file names by listing contents with the tar -tf filename.tar.gz command. For sending and storing, both .zip and .tar.gz files will allow 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.
Extract Files from a .tar.gz via GUI
While the tar utility is enough for most purposes, you’ll need the gzip utility to create .tar.gz files. 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.
How to Unzip .tar.gz in Linux using tar
Like the tar utility, gzip also allows you to zip and unzip multiple files or entire directories at a time. 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.
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 extract .tar.gz files using third-party tools like 7 zip and Winrar on the Windows system. This format is common in the Unix/Linux world and is widely used to create compressed archives.
But with .zip being the easier of the two to use, why use .tar in the first place? As we’ll see in the next section, .tar comes with a few extra features that make it the better compression format for certain files and applications. A user-friendly way to extract files from a .tar.gz archive is via a Graphical User Interface (GUI). 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.
As a result, we recommend sticking to free (but trustworthy) tools or simply using the command line. 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. It also integrates with the Windows Explorer context menu, which enables users to create and extract archives directly from the right-click menu. You can notice in the above image that the archive files are extracted in the same working directory. Then we’ll jump into the step-by-step process of unzipping on both Linux and Windows platforms.
On Windows 10, to use tar on Linux, you need to install the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) and a distro like Ubuntu from the Microsoft Store.
Advanced tar
You may also be interested in learning about the best WinZip alternatives to compress files. That means users can download and use it for free during a trial period. Also, its trial version does not have time limitations, and users can still use it even after the trial period has expired, with occasional reminders to purchase the license. These files can be used in incremental backup strategies – where only new or modified files are added to the archive. It just bundles files & directories together while preserving their file structure and metadata. This means it takes all the specified files and puts them together into one container.
GNU tar and BSD tar
However, there are also many third-party tools you can install for a more user-friendly experience. You can create your own compressed .tar files using compression utilities such as gzip. Gzip is one of the most popular and available options, especially since it comes built in to most Linux distributions and macOS. 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. People new to the tar format usually equate it to a .zip file, but a tar archive is notably not compressed.
In total, Mauro has over 20 years of combined experience in technology. Once you’re comfortable with the basics, it’s useful to explore other features. Connect and share knowledge within a single location that is structured and easy to search. Get started with a free trial of our Application Hosting or Database Hosting. For more information and to schedule a live demo, contact a hosting expert from Kinsta today. Here’s a guide to uninstall BetterDiscord to help you get on the legal side.
As we’ll see later, different compression utilities may require different methods for extracting and unzipping files. Though we’ll mostly focus on .tar.gz files, check out the end of the article for some quick tips on extracting interactive futures chart .tar files in other formats. Though both .zip and .tar.gz archive and compress files, they do so in different ways. In other words, .zip is a collection of compressed files, while .tar.gz is a compressed collection of files.
Its name implies it’s a zip utility, but it also works with tar archives, and even provides commands for the cmd command-line interface. 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, offshore bitcoin wallet for storing and holding cryptocurrency but it’s surprisingly common in situations where users directly rename files and their extensions (such as .tar and .gz) in the process. Unlike Windows’ convenient graphical user interface (GUI) for unzipping .zip files, you’ll need to use the tar utility through the command line.
Uncheck the “Touch files” option on the Extract Files dialog box, then enable either the “Update existing files” option or the “Freshen existing files only” checkbox. On Linux, BSD, Illumos, and even Mac OS, the tar command is already installed for you. Mauro Huculak is a Windows How-To Expert who started Pureinfotech in 2010 as an independent online publication. He has also been a Windows Central contributor for nearly a decade. Mauro has over 14 years of experience writing comprehensive guides and creating professional videos about Windows and software, including Android and Linux. Before becoming a technology writer, he was an IT administrator for seven years.
