Note that the path is wrapped in quotation marks because there are spaces in the path. 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 list the files in the Download directory we will see that another directory called Guitar Songs has been created. Files that have a .tar.gz or a .tar.bz2 extension are compressed archive files.

1. Any path that starts with a forward slash / is an absolute path.
2. Many of the downloadable Linux/Unix files found on the internet are compressed using a tar.gz format.
3. Gzip is one of the most popular and available options, especially since it comes built in to most Linux distributions and macOS.
4. If you find this article helpful or have additional ideas, please use the comment box below.

A GUI is more suitable for beginners than a command-line tool. 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. 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.

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

On Linux, there are multiple ways to unzip compressed archives. The .tar section of the file extension stands for “tape archive”. Even though most of us have hard drives instead of magnetic tape, we still call them tar files. 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.

If you find this article helpful or have additional ideas, please use the comment box below. For more information and to schedule a live demo, contact a hosting expert from Kinsta today. To access the Windows command line, search for “command prompt” or “cmd” in the search bar. Right-click the first result and select the “Run as administrator” option.

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. 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. From videos to entire software packages, many files are compressed and stored using the .tar.gz format.

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. Canonical released its first official version of the OS, Ubuntu 4.10, codenamed ‘Warty Warthog’ in October 2004.

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. 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. Tar is an archiving program designed to store multiple files in a single file (an archive), and to manipulate such archives.

.tar.gz Files

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). As the files are extracted, they are listed in the terminal window. One file is called ukulele_songs.tar.gz , the other is called guitar_songs.tar.bz2 . File compression is a great way to save storage on a computer. If you’re familiar with packages in Linux, you may have come across a TAR or a TAR.GZ file.

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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. 7-Zip is a free and open-source tool with high compression ratios & supports a wide range of archive formats.

You may also be interested in learning about the best WinZip alternatives to compress files. We can see that the Ukulele Songs directory contains directories called Random Songs, Ramones and Possibles. And of course this is possible with the Linux tar command, but firstly you need to check what is there inside the tarball without unpacking it. Use the –exclude flag to specify the names of the files that you don’t want to extract. You can combine both steps into a single command as well. The c, v, z, and f flags used in the aforementioned command stand for Create, Verbose, gzip, and Filename.

Short difference between debenture and loan for “Tape ARchive,” the name “TAR” is a throwback to when files were stored on magnetic tape drives. In Linux, users have multiple ways to extract .tar.gz files – through the terminal and graphical file archivers. The extraction method is precisely the same for tar files that have compression, such as.tar.gz,.tar.bz2, and others. You can use Tar (available on Linux) to extract files from previously created archives, to store extra files, and even to update files that were previously stored. If you use any open source software and use Linux, you’ll definitely need to untar tar.gz files at some point. (Tar is available on Linux.) If you want to extract or untar tar.gz files from your Linux-based VPS using command line options, there are several ways you can do this.

Creating archives is an important step when you’re backing up your Linux file system. This ensures that your backup remains unaffected and the files don’t corrupt if anything breaks on your system. This example uses example1.tar.gz in the Home directory. The output shows a newly created archive example1.tar.gz. Snaps were developed by Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, to package and distribute software focusing on security, sandboxing, and ease of installation and updates.

They were officially introduced in Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, released in April 2016. The -C option is used to specify a different directory other than the current working directory. 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. Similar to the previous error, this error occurs when an archive was saved as a .tar despite not being a .tar archive. 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.