Linux tar and gzip Tutorial: Compress and Extract Files

tar bundles many files into one archive, and gzip compresses it. Together they make the .tar.gz files you see everywhere on Linux.

Create an archive#

tar -czf project.tar.gz project
ls -lh project.tar.gz | awk '{print $5, $NF}'
du -sh project

108K project.tar.gz
312K	project

Remember the options as "create a zipped file":

List the contents#

Check what is inside before extracting:

tar -tzf project.tar.gz

project/
project/node_modules/
project/node_modules/lib.js
project/logs/
project/logs/app.log
project/README.md
project/src/
project/src/app.js

Extract#

mkdir restore
tar -xzf project.tar.gz -C restore
ls restore/project

README.md
logs
node_modules
src

-C chooses the destination. Without it, files are extracted into the current folder.

Exclude files#

Leave out dependencies and logs:

tar -czf clean.tar.gz --exclude='node_modules' --exclude='*.log' project
tar -tzf clean.tar.gz

project/
project/logs/
project/README.md
project/src/
project/src/app.js

Extract one file#

tar -xzf project.tar.gz -O project/README.md

# Project

-O prints to the screen, instead of writing a file.

gzip on its own#

gzip compresses a single file, and replaces it. gunzip reverses that:

seq 1 20000 > numbers.txt
ls -l numbers.txt | awk '{print $5}'
gzip numbers.txt
ls -l numbers.txt.gz | awk '{print $5}'
gunzip numbers.txt.gz
ls numbers.txt

108894
45016
numbers.txt

gzip -k keeps the original. zcat and zgrep read compressed files without extracting them, which is useful for old logs:

gzip -k numbers.txt
zcat numbers.txt.gz | tail -n 1
zgrep -c 999 numbers.txt.gz

20000
38

zip#

Use zip to share files with Windows users:

zip -qr project.zip project/src
unzip -l project.zip | tail -n 1
unzip -qo project.zip -d unzipped
ls unzipped/project/src

       18                     2 files
app.js

Compression compared#

With tar, change z to j for bzip2, or to J for xz. Already-compressed files such as JPEGs and videos will not shrink much further.

Common mistakes#

Practice#

tar -czf site.tar.gz --exclude='.env' site
tar -tzf site.tar.gz

site/
site/index.html

Key takeaway#

Next: Network Commands.