A file with just a .tar extension is uncompressed, but those will be very rare. Whether you prefer command-line tools or graphical file archivers, the extraction process is pretty simple. This format is common in the Unix/Linux world and is widely used to create compressed archives. If you want to unzip the files to a different folder, click on the Extract To option.
However, there are some pretty major differences when it comes to accessing data within the files and the compression efficiency. A “.tar” file is a collection of files compressed into a single file or archive. Short for “Tape ARchive,” the name “TAR” is a throwback to when files were stored on magnetic tape drives. If you want to create your own tar.gz file, you can use the tar command with the -c option, which tells tar to create a new archive. You also need to use the -z option to compress the archive with gzip, and the -f option to specify the file name.
Technical details aside, all you need to remember is that .zip files are more accessible but less space-efficient, while .tar files are less accessible but more space-efficient. As a result, one isn’t necessarily better than the other — it’s all a matter of application. Some of the most popular archive managers for Linux are File Roller, Ark, Xarchiver, and PeaZip. They offer more features and options than the file managers, such as creating, modifying, encrypting, and splitting archives. You can install them from your distribution’s package manager or software center.
tar: Archive is compressed. Use -z option
In the shell, you can add a file or directory to a tar archive as long as it is not compressed. If your archive has been compressed, you must uncompress it, but you do not need to unarchive it. These kinds of archives are sometimes called a tarbomb, although not always with a negative connotation. Tarbombs are useful for patches and software installers; it’s just a matter of knowing when to use them and when to avoid them. To extract all the files from a directory within a tar file use the following command. Note that the path is wrapped in quotation marks because there are spaces in the path.
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. In this example, the user tried to extract the file titled “FILE” from filename.tar.gz.
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. Any remotely modern version of tar should auto-detect that the archive is gzipped, and add “z” for you. The tar format is just a format, and it’s an open format, so it can be created by more than just one tool. This places all of the files in the archive neatly into the “newfiles” directory.
If we list the files in the Download directory we will see guides to open bitcoin wallet account 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. The collective -xvzf flag stands for Extract, Verbose, gzip, and Filename respectively.
If we want to extract the files to a location other than the current directory, we can specify a target directory using the -C (specified directory) option. 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. Again, the above command extracts to the current working directory by default. You can use the -C option to extract to a different directory (in this case, /home/user/files).
tar: Unrecognized archive format
The command extracts files to a new directory called example1, which is located in the current directory. 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 bitcoin has just halved again the terminal or command line, third-party tools such as 7-Zip offer a more user-friendly alternative. This error occurs if you try to decompress a file without specifying a decompression utility, specifically -z for gzip.
How to Create TAR and TAR.GZ Files
Of course, that’s not to say .tar files are some kind of “lesser” format than .zip. Rather, they both accomplish the same task (file compression) in the same way. 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.
Untar tar, tar.gz, tar.bx2 Files
But with best cryptocurrencies to mine ethereum guides .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. 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.
- In this article, you learned how to extract or unzip tar.gz files in Linux using the tar command and other tools.
- Here are a few frequently asked questions we commonly hear from users working with .tar.gz files.
- The c, v, z, and f flags used in the aforementioned command stand for Create, Verbose, gzip, and Filename.
- You also need to use the -z option to compress the archive with gzip, and the -f option to specify the file name.
- A GZ file is nothing but a file compressed using the gzip algorithm.
.tar.gz Files
As we see later, different compression utilities may require different methods for extracting and unzipping files. Though we mostly focus on .tar.gz files, check out the end of the article for some quick tips on extracting .tar files in other formats. By default, tar extracts the archive contents in the current working directory. If you want to extract the files to a different directory, you can use the -C option, which tells tar to change the directory before extracting the files. You need to specify the path to the directory where you want to extract the files after the -C option.
As a result, it has become a common file extension for many open-source software packages and other resources. To extract a tar.gz file using the tar command, you need to use the -x option, which tells tar to extract the files from the archive. You also need to use the -z option to indicate that the archive is compressed with gzip, and the -f option to specify the file name. Learn how to extract or unzip tar.gz files in Linux using the tar command and other tools. The Dolphin file manager offers a feature to autodetect whether the files extracted from an archive are contained in a directory or if a new directory needs to be created for them. I use this option so that when I extract files from a tarbomb, they remain tidy and contained.
For example, it goes without saying, that it is inadvisable to untar the whole large archive if you need for example to extract only a dingle file or a directory from it. Then we’ll jump into the step-by-step process of unzipping on both Linux and Windows platforms. Locate the compressed archive file and right-click on it to bring up the menu. Similarly, you can unzip specific directories from the archive as well. 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.
