how to decompress tar.gz

This error message can occur if you only partially downloaded a file or if it has major issues. Put your knowledge to the test in our lightning-fast Ubuntu quiz! Ten questions to challenge yourself to see if you’re a Linux legend or just a penguin in the making. Bobby, an editor-in-chief at Linuxiac, is a Linux professional with over 20 years of experience. With a strong focus on Linux and open-source software, he has worked as a Senior Linux System Administrator, Software Developer, and DevOps Engineer for small and large multinational companies. Once you choose the directory, click the Select button in the top right corner.

Troubleshooting Common Errors

For more information and to schedule a live demo, contact a hosting expert from Kinsta today. However, while tools like 7-Zip are free, many more “robust” solutions are only available for a price after a trial period. As a result, we recommend sticking to free (but trustworthy) tools or simply using the command line.

On Windows, the easiest way to handle .tar files is to install the LGPL open source 7-Zip utility. 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. Though both .zip and .tar.gz archive and compress files, they do so in different ways.

Once you’ve downloaded and installed 7-Zip, double-click on the tar.gz file that you’re trying to open, and then select “Choose an app on your PC” from the popup dialog that shows up. This example uses example1.tar.gz in the Home 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.

Any how to sell a bitcoin remotely modern version of tar should auto-detect that the archive is gzipped, and add “z” for you. Now the file “four” is extracted to a new directory called “bar.” If “bar” already exists, then “four” is placed inside the existing directory. If you have an existing tarball and want to add a new file into it, you don’t have to unarchive everything just to add a new file. A tar archive is often referred to as a tarball, presumably because we hackers love to shorten words to as few syllables as possible, and “tarball” is shorter and easier than “tar archive.” It happens sometimes for the files downloaded with “wget” command. Just 10 minutes ago, I was trying to install something to server from the command screen and the same thing happened.

How to Extract a tar.gz File to a Different Directory

  1. Some common examples include .tar.bz2 (bzip2), .tar.br (Brotli), and .tar.zst (zstd), among many others.
  2. Once you choose the directory, click the Select button in the top right corner.
  3. Canonical released its first official version of the OS, Ubuntu 4.10, codenamed ‘Warty Warthog’ in October 2004.
  4. 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.
  5. People new to the .tar format usually equate it to a .zip archive, but a tar archive is not compressed.
  6. The other scenario you mush verify is that the file you’re trying to unpack is not empty and is valid.

As you might imagine, using a different compression utility on what is a white label mobile app definition and examples 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. From videos to entire software packages, many files are compressed and stored using the .tar.gz format. While extracting a .tar.gz file isn’t quite as easy as unzipping a .zip, it’s still pretty straightforward.

how to decompress tar.gz

How to Extract or Unzip tar.gz Files Using Bash on Windows 10 or 11

It’s often useful to list the contents of a .tar.gz file without having to unzip the entire archive. The -list (-t) option outputs a list of filenames. 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. 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.

Short for “Tape ARchive,” the name “TAR” is a throwback to when files were stored on magnetic tape drives. This is because most versions of tar allow both gnu and bsd style options (simplistically, gnu requires a hyphen, bsd doesn’t). You’ll probably have to install the “other” tar (whatever that may be on your system) manually. Sometimes you need to view the content of a tar file as it collects many files and ensures if a specific file is present.

People new to the tar format usually equate it to a .zip file, but a tar archive is notably not compressed. The tar format only creates a container for files, but the files  can be compressed with separate utilities. Common compressions applied to a .tar how to add a vanilla gift card to apple wallet file are Gzip, bzip2, and xz.

A GUI is more suitable for beginners than a command-line tool. Knowing how to unzip a .tar.gz file allows users to extract and access the archives’ contents efficiently. 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.