Dealing With Compressed Files In The Terminal

Extracting Common Compressed Formats on Linux

Incase you only have access to a Terminal here is how you would deal with 10 common compressed files. (like if your on a headless raspberry pi or sshd in from somewhere else)

1. .tar.gz or .tgz (Gzip compressed tarball):

   tar -xvzf file.tar.gz

2. .tar.bz2 (Bzip2 compressed tarball):

   tar -xvjf file.tar.bz2

3. .tar.xz (XZ compressed tarball):

   tar -xvJf file.tar.xz

4. .zip:

   unzip file.zip

5. .rar:

   Install unrar first:

   sudo apt install unrar

   Then extract:

   unrar x file.rar

6. .7z (7-Zip format):

   Install p7zip-full first:

   sudo apt install p7zip-full

   Then extract:

   7z x file.7z

7. .gz (Single compressed file, not tarball):

   gunzip file.gz

8. .bz2 (Single compressed file, not tarball):

   bunzip2 file.bz2

9. .xz (Single compressed file, not tarball):

   unxz file.xz

10. .Z (Compressed with compress):

    uncompress file.Z

Replace file with the actual name of your compressed file. For .tar formats, the options (-x, -v, -f) can be combined with the respective compression type (z for gzip, j for bzip2, J for xz).