How to Extract tar gz File in Linux by Using the Command Line

The first part of the command writes the archive.tar file to the standard output. The second command reads the archive.tar file from the standard input and compresses it accordingly. 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.

Extract a Single Directory from a Tarball

We can see that the Ukulele Songs directory contains directories called Random Songs, Ramones and Possibles. Then we’ll jump into the step-by-step process of unzipping on both Linux and Windows platforms. 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.

The system will extract all the files to your current directory by default. For TAR.GZ files, you will have to unzip the compressed archive to TAR, and then further extract the TAR file using 7-Zip. The -so and -si flags denote Standard Output and Standard Input.

If we list the files in the Download directory we will see that another directory called Guitar Songs has been created. On the other hand, Windows users can rely on third-party file archiver tools like 7-zip or WinRAR to effortlessly extract files. In Linux, users have multiple ways to extract .tar.gz files – through the terminal and graphical file archivers. Knowing how to unzip a .tar.gz file allows users to extract and access the archives’ contents efficiently. Some third-party tools also offer extended flexibility for converting between file types‌, saving more time if you want to change between compression formats. A “.tar” file is a collection of files compressed into a single file or archive.

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You can use the official GNU gzip utility to extract the content of the compressed archive file. If the file you’re looking at is a TAR.GZ, using either tar or 7-Zip to extract the file will be a much simpler choice. If you don’t want the directory structure in the tar file to be recreated on your hard drive, use the –strip-components option. The –strip-components option requires a numerical what net sales means parameter. The number represents how many levels of directories to ignore. Files from the ignored directories are still extracted, but the directory structure is not replicated on your hard drive.

It’s easy to get confused when navigating between .tar, .tar.gz, and .gz – not to mention zipping and unzipping them. Here are a few frequently asked questions we commonly hear from users working with .tar.gz files. This error occurs if you try to decompress a file without specifying a decompression utility, specifically -z for gzip. In this example, the user tried to extract the file titled “FILE” from filename.tar.gz. However, tar was unable to find FILE within .tar.gz, meaning that the user either misspelled the name or that the file simply doesn’t exist in filename.tar.gz. Another common cause of errors is case sensitivity, where Linux treats “FILE” and “file” as two separate entities.

If the command line isn’t your thing, there are plenty of user-friendly tools available to unzip tar.gz files. But with .zip being the easier of the two to use, why use .tar in the first place? The next section shows how .tar comes with a few extra features that make it the better compression format for certain files and applications.

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. DEB is the native and most common package format Ubuntu and other Debian-based Linux distributions use. It contains compiled binaries, libraries, configuration files, and metadata required to install and manage software on a Ubuntu system.

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You will learn how to list the contents of a tar archive without unpacking it and how to extract only a single file or a single directory. 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. To do this we’ll use almost exactly the same command as before but with one important difference. The .bz2 extension suffix tells us it has been compressed using the bzip2 command.

Sometimes you need to view the content of a tar file as it collects many files and ensures if a specific file is present. You can choose which files to extract from the archive. To do so, simply pass the file names with the default command.

1. Rather, they both accomplish the same task (file compression) in the same way.
2. Thankfully, unless you’re somehow missing your tar or gzip utility, most common errors are very easy to fix.
3. Again, the above command extracts to the current working directory by default.
4. You can use the -C option to extract to a different directory (in this case, /home/user/files).
5. If you find this article helpful or have additional ideas, please use the comment box below.

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. You can also use –wildcards to extract all files with a certain extension or name. I am using 7zip v19.00, just right click and choose extract here will do the work.

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. 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. When you want to share multiple files with someone else, compressing those files into a single TAR archive is the most efficient solution. Apart from occupying less space on your system storage, compressed archives utilize less server bandwidth when downloaded by multiple users.

Ubuntu is a Southern African philosophy and term originating from South Africa and Zimbabwe. 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.

Although 7zip issues warning, the result is fine for me. 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. Once you’ve done this successfully, you’ll notice that the icon for tar.gz files will change to a 7-Zip icon.

Connect and share knowledge within a single location that is structured and easy to search. 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. Canonical released its first official version of the OS, Ubuntu 4.10, codenamed ‘Warty Warthog’ in October 2004.