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

Given this structure, the site admin could extract your incoming archive directly to the server’s root directory. 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. These kinds of archives are sometimes called a tarbomb, although not always with a negative connotation.

1. The tar command will work 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.
2. And now you can use the 7-Zip File Manager to open, view, or extract files from tar.gz and other archives.
3. If you want 7-Zip to always handle tar.gz files in the future, you’re going to want to select the „Always” button at the bottom of the dialog.
4. Unpack is a simple third-party Bash wrapper script that allows you to unzip almost any type of modern archive format in Linux.
5. You may want to extract the contents of the archive to a specific directory.

List contents of .tar.gz file in Linux

To extract a single file called video.mpeg from video.tar use the following command as given below example. After reading this article, you know how to extract or unzip .tar.gz file in Linux using different methods and tools. In this guide, you will learn how to extract or unzip .tar.gz files in Linux. The easiest way to open a tar.gz file on Windows is to install an excellent free utility called 7-Zip, which can handle tar.gz and just about any other file format. We’ve been recommending this app for years, and it’s one of the first things that we install whenever reinstalling Windows. The command includes how and where to buy bitcoin in the uk a large number of additional options, so we can’t possibly list them all here.

Troubleshooting Common Errors

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. And now you can use the 7-Zip File Manager to open, view, or extract files from tar.gz and other archives. If you want a specific file, you can drill down into the folder, or you can simply click the „Extract” button and choose a location to put all the files.

It’s often useful to list the contents of a .tar.gz file without having to unzip the entire archive. Again, the above command extracts to how to buy bored ape yacht club the current working directory by default. You can use the -C option to extract to a different directory (in this case, /home/user/files). Of course, that’s not to say .tar files are some kind of “lesser” format than .zip.

GNU tar and BSD tar

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. Note that this command will throw an error unless you specify the exact filename listed in the .tar 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. 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. 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 tar format only creates a container for files, but the files can be compressed with separate utilities. Common compressions applied to a .tar file are Gzip, bzip2, and xz. That’s why you rarely see just a .tar file and more commonly encounter .tar.gz or .tgz files. As we see later, different compression utilities may require different methods for extracting and unzipping files.

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. Once you choose the directory, click the Select button in the top right corner.

Scrolling through the output we can see that everything in the tar file is held within a directory called Ukulele Songs, and within that directory, there are files and other directories. 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.

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. 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. One file is called ukulele_songs.tar.gz , the other is called guitar_songs.tar.bz2 . 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 a beginners guide to bitcoin 7-Zip offer a more user-friendly alternative. In this example, the user tried to extract the file titled “FILE” from filename.tar.gz.