Opening a .tar.gz file with a single command

Question

When I download a .tar.gz file, I open it with two commands, first gunzip and then tar.

Is it possible to open it with just one command?

i think this would better fit superuser or serverfault. – nmuntz Aug 08 '09 at 14:14 — nmuntz, Aug 08 '09 at 14:14

score 87 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 16 '09 at 15:54

87

tar xzf file.tar.gz

The letters are:

x - extract
z - gunzip the input
f - Read from a file, not stdin

answered Mar 16 '09 at 15:54

unwind

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This is correct. The only thing that I would add is that z usually only works on gnu tar. The typical UNIX tar won't have this in my experience at least. – Jon Mar 16 '09 at 16:19
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`tar xf file.tar` if you have `file.tar`. – mrgloom Mar 01 '19 at 12:20
If you are working with a very large .tgz file, and unzipping it to the same file system will result in an out of disk space error, you can add `--directory /existing/target/directory` where `/existing/target/directory` is on another file system that has sufficient space. This is especially handy if said destination file system can't handle files as large as the particular .tgz file. In this case adding `v` to the options as mentioned in @WiseTechi 's answer (and other answers) can be useful so you know it is actually working as desired. – hlongmore Aug 31 '20 at 06:54

score 12 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 16 '09 at 15:54

12

You can use tar with a "z" argument

tar xvfz mytar.tar.gz

answered Mar 16 '09 at 15:54

WiseTechi

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what does the 'v' argument do? – Nathan Fellman Mar 18 '09 at 15:33
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v stands for "verbose" - I like to see what my command is doing – WiseTechi Mar 18 '09 at 16:13
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in fact, for extract `x` mode, you don't have to specify `z` with newer tar -- it is autodetected (GNU tar 1.20+). – u0b34a0f6ae Aug 31 '09 at 23:15

score 4 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 16 '09 at 17:27

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If you don't have gnu tar it is still possible to open the file in a single step (although technically still two commands) using a pipe

zcat file.tar.gz |tar x

answered Mar 16 '09 at 17:27

Martin Beckett

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score 2 · Answer 4 · edited Dec 03 '21 at 15:11

The only thing that I would add is that z usually only works on gnu tar. The typical UNIX tar won't have this in my experience at least. – Jon Mar 16 at 16:19

The z option works well on my OS X v10.5 (Leopard) as well.

When it comes to memorizing, I think it´s easy to think of what you want and not just some letters.

If you want to create an archive, then c will be the first option, else x will be the first option if you want to extract.
If you want to compress/decompress with the gzip/gunzip program, then the next option should be z for zip. (All archives ending with .gz must be unzipped with the z option)
The last mandatory option is f for the file.

Then you usually end up with these two commands:

tar czf file.tar.gz /folder_to_archive/*
tar xzf file.tar.gz

score 2 · Answer 5 · edited Dec 03 '21 at 15:21

How do I extract a gz file?

Use the guzip command as follows:

gunzip file.gz

Or

gzip -d file.gz

How do I extract a tar.gz or .tgz file?

Files with extension tar.gz or .tgz are tar files compressed with gzip. On Unix system extract them with following command:

gunzip < file.tar.gz | tar xvf -
gunzip < file.tgz | tar xvf -

If you have GNU tar (Linux system) you can use the z option directly:

tar xvzf file.tar.gz
tar xvzf file.tgz

To read more, see Linux / UNIX command to open .gz files.

score 1 · Answer 6 · answered Jul 02 '16 at 16:58

Untar Single file from tar File compressed file

To extract a single file called video.mpeg from video.tar use the following command as given below example.

# tar -xvf video.tar video.mpeg

video.mpeg

Extracting Single file from tar.gz File

Use the following command to extract a single file codefile.xml from websitecode.tar.gz archive file

# tar -zxvf websitecode.tar.gz code.xml

code.xml

Extracting Single file from tar.bz2 File

Use the command to extract single file file.html from websitecode.tar.bz2

# tar -jxvfwebsitecode.tar.bz2 home/website/file.html

/home/website/file.html

Also you can read more about all the tar commands at This link explains all the useful tar commands available in linux

score 0 · Answer 7 · edited Dec 03 '21 at 15:19

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On Windows, try the tartool utility.

It's free and the code is open source and uses the SharpZipLib library.

Disclaimer: I am the author of this utility.

edited Dec 03 '21 at 15:19

Peter Mortensen

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answered Sep 09 '09 at 16:31

senthil

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stackprotector · Answer 8 · 2021-10-12T07:55:54.873

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Nowadays tar decompresses automatically if needed. It is enough to write:

tar xf file.tar.gz

Mnemonic: extract file

edited Oct 12 '21 at 07:55

answered Oct 12 '21 at 07:46

stackprotector

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Opening a .tar.gz file with a single command

8 Answers8

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