--- title: "Using Tar & Gzip/Gunzip to Create or Unzip GZ Files/TGZ Files in Linux" source: "https://docs.nexcess.com/sites-stores/server-administration/linux/file-management/decompress-gzip-files/" description: "Learn how to unzip (decompress/uncompress) .gz or tar.gz files in Linux. This article covers the differences between TAR, GZ, TAR.GZ, TGZ, and ZIP files." vertical: "Sites & Stores" date: "2019-09-11" last_modified: "2026-06-30" --- # Using Tar & Gzip/Gunzip to Create or Unzip GZ Files/TGZ Files in Linux Tar and Gzip utilities are often used together to create compressed TGZ/TAR.GZ files, which will be helpful in moving your data between systems efficiently. This article breaks down the differences between TAR, GZ, TAR.GZ, TGZ, and ZIP files. Keep reading to learn how to use these files in Linux. ## What are the Differences Between TAR, GZ, TAR.GZ, TGZ, and ZIP Files? ### What is a TAR File? > A **TAR** file’s abbreviation stands for Tape Archive. A **TAR** file puts multiple files together. A **TAR** file does not reduce the size as there is no compression involved. ### What is a GZ File? > A **GZ** file is created by the **Gzip** compression utility. A **GZ** file is a compressed single file, as the **Gzip** compression utility only compresses one file. If you compress multiple files with the **Gzip** compression utility, it produces multiple **GZ** files. The **Gzip** compression utility is common in **Linux**/**Unix** operating systems. ### What is a TAR.GZ File? > A **TAR.GZ** file is a combination of a **TAR** file and a **GZ** file in that it is a **TAR** archive file that has been compressed with the **Gzip** compression utility. A **TAR.GZ** file most commonly found in **Linux**/**Unix** operating systems. ### What is a ZIP File? > A **ZIP** file puts multiple files together just as a **TAR** file does, as well as having built-in compression just as a **GZ** file has. A **ZIP** file is most commonly found in **Windows** operating systems. The **Zip** compression utility is common in **Windows** operating systems. ## What is a Tarball or Tarfile? A tarball or tarfile is an informal name used name to refer to an archive file in one of the following **TAR** file formats: - **TAR** File (Tape Archive file) - **TAR.GZ** or **TGZ** File (only when compressed using the **Gzip** compression utility) - **TAR.BZ2** or **TBZ** File (only when compressed using the **Bzip2** compression utility) A tarball or tarfile is name of group of files that are bundled together. These files are produced by the command tar. **Tar** itself does not support compression directly. It is often used with a compression utility such as **Gzip** or **Bzip2** to space disk space. These compression utilities generally only compress a single file, so they are used in combination with **Tar**, which can produce a single file from many files. If the tarfile is compressed using **Gzip** compression utility, the tarball file will end with **TAR.GZ**. Using the **Gunzip** command, **Linux** users can uncompress **TAR.GZ** or **TGZ** files. **Windows** users can also create and expand tarball files using the **7-Zip** compression utility. ## Using Tar & Gzip/Gunzip to Create or Unzip GZ Files/TGZ Files in Linux **GZ** and **TGZ** files are considered file compression and archiving standards for **Linux** systems. Therefore, knowing how to create and uncompress **GZ** and **TAR.GZ** files can help you accomplish different website administration tasks, including creating backups and restoring websites from them. In this article, we will learn what **Gzip** and **Tar** utilities are and how to create and unzip **GZ** and **TGZ/TAR.GZ** files in **Linux.** ## Tar & Gzip: How They Work **Tar** and **Gzip** are popular **Linux** system utilities for file compression and archiving. Although both tools are usually used together, **Tar** and **Gzip** perform different tasks. ### The Tar File Archiving Utility **Tar** is a utility used to merge several files into a single file, usually referred to as an archive, without compressing them. Another name for a tar archive is a tarball representing a file with the **TAR** file extension. You can think of a tarball as a container for multiple files that makes storing and moving them more convenient. **Tar** does not change file system attributes such as permissions or ownership of the files included in a tarball; it saves them in an archive. Even after an archive has been created, you can still add or remove files from it or manipulate the filenames unless the archive has been compressed. The **tar** command is used to manage **TAR** and **TAR.GZ** files on a **Linux** system, including their creation, modification, and extracting files from them. Tarballs were originally used to create backups and move them to local tape drives as tape archives, so that is where the term **Tar** (short for tape archive) got its name from originally. Unfortunately, **Tar** itself does not compress files, so the size of a **Tar** archive equals the amount of disk space the files it contains occupy. But nowadays, it is hard to imagine using **Tar** without file compression, which allows **Tar** archives to occupy less disk space and hence makes it easier for them to be transferred between systems. **Tar** supports multiple compression methods, the most common of them are the **Gzip/Gunzip** and **Bzip2/Bunzip2** compression utilities. Using **Tar** together with **Gzip** for file compression has become the best file archiving solution for **Linux**. ### The Linux Gzip File Compression Method **Gzip** is the most popular file compression utility for **Linux** systems which can be used alone to compress individual files. The **Gzip** and **Gunzip** commands compress a file, resulting in the new compressed version of it being created while the original file is removed by default. Files compressed with **Gzip** will have the **GZ** file extension. Therefore, when paired with **Tar**, the compressed archive will be saved as a **TAR.GZ** or **TGZ** file. #### Gzip vs. Zip File Compression Although **Gzip** uses the same compression algorithm as **Zip** which is a known utility for **Windows**, it can compress a single file at a time, so **Tar** is used first to create a tarball which **Gzip** will then compress. On the other hand, **Zip** compresses each file before adding them to an archive, which results in a bigger archive file size. However, having an archive compressed makes it more difficult to extract individual files without uncompressing the whole tarball first. ## How to Create & Unzip GZ Files/TGZ Files in Linux **Tar** and **Gzip/Gunzip** commands allow system administrators to create and unzip **GZ** and **TGZ** files. Like many other **Linux** utilities, they provide a set of flags that help you choose the options your need to use the functionality of the commands better to achieve specific goals. **Gzip/Gunzip** and **Tar** are installed by default on most **Linux** distributions, so all you need is **SSH** access and basic knowledge of the **Linux** command line interface. ### Using Gzip/Gunzip to Create or Unzip GZ Files **Gzip** and **Gunzip** commands can be used to unzip **GZ** files in **Linux**, except for compressed **Tar** archives. Although a **TAR.GZ** file is a **TAR** archive compressed by **Gzip**, only the **Tar** command will allow you to uncompress and extract files from it. #### How to Compress a File With Gzip As we discussed, you can compress an individual file by creating a new version of it with the **GZ** file extension while keeping the same file permissions and ownership. By default, the original file will be removed, so you will need to unzip the **GZ** file to continue using it. However, this behavior can be changed. Below we will compress three files from the current working directory using **Gzip** compression. ``` # Compress multiple files with GZIP gzip -kv file1 file2 file3 ``` We are keeping the original files using the **-k** flag and can see the percentage reduction and the names of the files processed as the command runs by using the **-v** option. Three new **GZ** files will be created in the directory due to the command above. The **-k** flag might be unavailable in some cases, so we will need to use the **-c** option to keep the original file. We can use the **-c** flag to make the **Gzip** command usage more flexible. For example, we can use it to change the directory the new compressed file will be saved to and to change its name. ``` # Compress a file without removing it and place it in another directory gzip -c file1 > /home/temp/compressed_file1.gz ``` #### How to Open GZ Files Without Unzipping You can use the **zcat** command in **Linux** to view the contents of a compressed file without unzipping it. It works for all compression utilities, including **Gzip**. ``` # View the contents of a GZIP compressed file zcat compressed_file1.gz ``` #### How to Unzip GZ Files You can unzip **GZ** files in **Linux** by adding the **-d** flag to the **Gzip/Gunzip** command. All the same flags we used above can be applied. The **GZ** file will be removed by default after we uncompressed it unless we use the **-k** flag. Below we will unzip the **GZ** files we compressed in the same directory. ``` # Unzip GZ file gzip -dv compressed_file1.gz compressed_file1.gz: 52.8% -- replaced with compressed_file1 ``` In the example below, the following commands are equivalents. Using the **gunzip** command: ``` # Unzip GZ file gunzip file.gz ``` Using the **gzip -d** command: ``` # Unzip GZ file gzip -d file.gz ``` In the example below, use the following command to see the decompressed file. Using the **ls -1** command: ``` # List one file per line ls -1 ``` ### Using Tar to Create and Unzip TAR GZ Files The tar command is used to create and unzip the TGZ files on a Linux system. You can choose to unzip the whole archive or extract only the selected files or directories. Below we will learn how to unzip TAR.GZ files from the command line using different flags. #### How to Create a TAR.GZ Archive Before creating a **Tar** archive compressed by **Gzip**, we need to understand what files we need to include and how we will group them together. Then, we can specify the files manually or create an archive of a whole directory and its subdirectories if there are any. Unlike using **Gzip** to compress individual files, creating a **Tar** archive compressed by **Gzip** will not lead to the removal of the files we include in it. ``` # Create a TGZ archive of a directory and save it to another folder tar -czvf tar_archive.tar.gz my_directory -C /home/temp # Place the chosen files in a TGZ archive tar -czvf tar_files_archive.tar.gz file1 file2 file3 ``` Using the first command, we have created a **Gzip**-compressed **Tar** archive of the whole **my\_directory** folder and placed it in the **/home/temp** directory. When using the second command, the **tar\_files\_archive.tar.gz** file will be saved to the current working directory and will only contain the three files we specified to be included. We have used the following flags to specify the **Tar** command behavior: - **c** – create an archive - **z** – compress using **Gzip** - **v** – verbose mode; you will be able to see a detailed output as the command is running - **f** – specify the new archive filename - **C** – specify a different target directory #### How to View Archived Files The **-t** flag allows you to view the continents of an existing **TGZ** archive file. In addition, you can use pipes to search for the files you need if the archive is large. ``` # List the contents of a TGZ archive tar -tvf tar_files_archive.tar.gz ``` #### How to Unzip TAR.GZ Files You can **Untar** **Gzip-**compressed **Tar** archives using the **-x** (extract) flag the **Tar** command provides. Again, you can specify what directory you would like to extract the archived files to, as **Tar** will place all the contents of the **TGZ** file to the current working directory by default. ``` # Untar Tar Gz file and place uncompressed files in another directory tar -xzvf new_archive.tar.gz -C /home/temp ``` Frequently you will need to extract a specific file or folder from a **TGZ** file archive which is possible using the **Tar** command. Let’s take a look at the example below. We have our **new\_archive.tar.gz** file and need to extract a file named **myfile** from it. We have confirmed it is included in the **TAR.GZ** file archive. ``` # Check whether the needed file is in the archive tar -tvf new_archive.tar.gz | grep myfile -rw-r--r-- root/root 108 2022-05-08 05:12 home/user/myfile ``` As the file is the **home/user** directory we archived, we cannot easily extract it without having to restore the whole directory. The **strip-components** option allows us to extract the desired files or directories without extracting their parent folders by specifying how many levels down the parent directory we need to descend. In our case, we are using **2** as the argument. Please note that you need to specify the full path to the file or directory you would like to extract. ``` # Extract myfile from the Tar Gz archive tar -xzvf new_archive.tar.gz new/new2/myfile --strip-components=2 new/new2/myfile ``` ## Conclusion In this article, we learned how to use **Tar** and **Gzip** for file compression and archiving and unzipping **TAR.GZ** files in **Linux**. **Tar** and **Gzip** utilities are often used together to create **TAR.GZ f**ile archives while achieving a high level of compression. **TGZ** files are widely used in backup creation. For example, hosting control panels like **InterWorx** and **cPanel** save local website backups as **Gzip**-compressed **Tar** file archives. Using **Tar** and **Gzip** can also help you move your data between systems more manageable and more efficiently by reducing its size and merging it into a single file.