Linux: Compression How-to: tar gzip bzip2 xz 7zip rar zip

This page shows you how to decompress or compress file or directory in Linux.

tar archive (.tar)

“tar” is for making a directory into a single file. Tar does not compress. Tar is often used with a compression utility such as gzip.

archive a folder

tar cvf newName.tar dirName

Here's most frequently used options:

• v → verbose, meaning print out status.
• f → file.
• c → create.
• x → extract.
• t → test/list content.

“tar” can untar and decompress in one step:

Extract .tar

tar xvf fileName

Extract .tar.gz

tar xvfz fileName

Extract .bz2

tar xvfj fileName

Extract .xz

tar xvfJ fileName

List content of .tar

tar -tvf fileName

gzip compression (.gz)

gzip is unix standard for compressing a single file.

Compress

gzip fileName

Decompress

gzip -d fileName or gunzip fileName

Check integrity

gzip -t fileName

bzip2 compression (.bz2)

bzip2 is for compressing a single file.

Compress

bzip2 fileName

Decompress

bzip2 -d fileName

xz compression (.xz)

xz is for compressing a single file.

Compress

xz fileName

Decompress

unxz fileName or xz -d fileName

zip archive (.zip)

ZIP (file format) is for archiving and compressing a folder or single file.

Create archive

zip -r newName.zip dirName

Extract

unzip fileName

Check integrity

zip -T name.zip

7-zip archive (.7z)

7-zip is for archiving and compressing a folder.

The 7z util can decompress many formats.

Create archive

7z a -t7z newName.7z dirName

Extract

7z x fileName

rar archive (.rar .rev .r00 .r01 .r02 …)

RAR (file format) is for archiving and compressing a folder. File extension: {.rar .rev .r00 .r01 .r02 …}.

Extract rar file

unrar e fileName

Extract rar file

7z x fileName

Compression File Size Comparison

• emacs-24.2.tar.gz 49M
• emacs-24.2.tar.bz2 40M
• emacs-24.2.tar.xz 33M