How to compress and extract files in Linux

You can compress and decompress files using the terminal or a GUI. In this tutorial I will show you several programs to do this.

Table of Contents

• tar
• zip
• unzip
• gzip, gunzip
• xz
• iso-info and iso-read (extract files from ISO)
• File Roller (GUI)
• Ark (GUI)

tar

With tar you can compress and decompress files with the “tar”, “tar.gz” and “tar.xz” formats. The difference between “tar” and others is “tar” is not a compress format, but an “archive” (like a folder). Depending on the version of tar, you can add the parameters without a hyphen (tar cf instead of tar -cf).

• Create a tar archive file

  tar -cf <filename>.tar <files>
  

  tar -cf test.tar image.jpg
  tar -cf folder.tar folder/
  

• Extract a tar file

  tar -xf <filename>.tar
  

• Extract only one file from a tar archive.

  tar -xf <filename>.tar file
  

• Create a tar.gz file

  tar -czf <filename>.tar.gz <files>
  

• Extract a tar.gz file

  tar -xzf <filename>.tar.gz
  

• Create a tar.xz file

  tar -cJf <filename>.tar.xz <files>
  

• Extract a tar.xz file

  tar -xJf <filename>.tar.xz
  

• List contents inside a tar file

  tar -tf <filename>.tar
  

More parameters:

• --one-top-level: when extracting a file, create a folder for extracted files (with the name of the file).
• -p: preserve files permissions (use it when creating and extracting a tar)

zip

Compress files with the “zip” format.

zip <filename>.zip <files>
# or
zip <filename> <files>

# Compress more
zip -9 <filename>.zip <files>

More parameters:

• -r: recursive, go into directories.

unzip

Decompress “zip” files:

unzip <filename>.zip

Options for unzip:

• -l: list files in compressed file.
• -d <folder>: extract files in the specified folder (it will create the folder if it doesn’t exist).

gzip, gunzip

Compress a file:

gzip file

Decompress a file:

gzip -d file.gz
# or
gunzip file.gz

xz

Compress a file:

xz file

Decompress a file:

xz -d rootfs.xz

iso-info and iso-read (extract files from ISO)

List ISO contents:

iso-info -i file.iso -f

Extract a file:

iso-read -i file.iso -e /images/rootfs.xz -o rootfs.xz

File Roller (GUI)

Default Archive Manager for GNOME (package name is file-roller).

Ark (GUI)

Default KDE app for archiving.

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