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.
Once you’re comfortable with the basics, it’s useful to explore other features. This simplifies file management and reduces the risk of data loss during transfers. Once you choose the directory, click the Select button in the top right corner.
However, there are also many third-party tools you can install for a more user-friendly experience. 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. On Windows, the easiest way to handle .tar files is to install the LGPL open source 7-Zip utility.
- You can notice in the above image that the archive files are extracted in the same working directory.
- To extract a tar.gz file using an archive manager, you need to open the file with the archive manager and then click on the Extract button.
- 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.
- As a result, we recommend sticking to free (but trustworthy) tools or simply using the command line.
- And now you can use the 7-Zip File Manager to open, view, or extract files from tar.gz and other archives.
How to extract and unzip .tar.gz files (for Linux and Windows)
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. This places all of the files in the archive neatly into the “newfiles” directory. On Linux, BSD, Illumos, and even Mac OS, the tar command is already installed for you.
We’ve been recommending this app for years, and it’s one of the first things that we install whenever reinstalling Windows. 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.
How to Unzip or Extract TAR and TAR.GZ
That means users can download and use it for free during a trial period. Also, its trial version does not have time limitations, and users can still use it even after the trial period has expired, with occasional reminders to purchase the license. These files can be used in incremental backup strategies – where only new or modified files are added to the archive.
Zip and unzip .tar and .tar.gz in Linux with gzip
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. After reading this article, you know how to extract or unzip .tar.gz file in Linux using different methods and tools. A user-friendly way to extract files from a .tar.gz archive is via a Graphical User Interface (GUI). In this guide, you will learn how to extract or unzip .tar.gz files in Linux.
For a more detailed explanation on how the tar command works, be sure to read our guide to compressing and extracting files in the Linux Terminal. The tar command is extremely powerful, and you can do things like list or search for files in a tar archive, or extract a single file. And now you can use the 7-Zip File Manager to open, view, or extract files from tar.gz and other archives.
You need to use the exact names and paths as listed by the tar -t command. A GZ file is nothing but a file compressed using the gzip algorithm. 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. When you extract files from a .tar.gz archive, the checksum is automatically verified to detect & handle any potential data corruption.
The GNU tar command included with Linux distributions has integrated compression. It can create a .tar archive and then compress it with gzip or bzip2 compression in a single command. If you want to see the progress of the compression, you can use the -v option, which makes the tar command more verbose and prints the names of the files being added to the archive. To extract a tar.gz file using an archive manager, you need to open the file with the archive manager and then click on the Extract button. You can also select the files and directories you want to extract and the destination directory where you want to extract them. You can also extract only specific files or directories from a tar.gz archive, by providing their names after the archive name.
Extract Files to the Specific Directory
As a result, it has become a common file extension for many open-source software packages and other resources. While gzip compression is most frequently used to create .tar.gz or .tgz files, tar also supports bzip2 compression. This allows you to create bzip2-compressed files, often named .tar.bz2, .tar.bz, or .tbz files. To do so, just replace the -z for gzip in the commands here with a -j for bzip2. 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.
It allows users to create, view, and extract files in various archive formats, including its native .RAR format as well as other common formats like .ZIP, .7z, ISO, .TAR, and more. Though both .zip and .tar.gz archive and compress files, they do so in different ways. In other words, .zip is a collection of compressed files, while .tar.gz is a compressed collection of files.
That’s how to mine bitcoins using your own computer why you rarely see just a .tar file and more commonly encounter .tar.gz or .tgz files. Before extracting a tar.gz file, you may want to see what files and directories it contains. To do that, you can use the tar command with the -t option, which lists the contents of an archive without extracting it. You also need to use the -z option to tell tar that the archive is compressed with gzip, and the -f option to specify the file name. While every tar.gz file is a .tar archive, not every .gz is a .tar file. The .gz extension represents the gzip compression format, which can be applied to almost any file format to compress data and save space.