Compressing and Uncompressing Files in Linux

Last Updated on February 1, 2025 by sandeeppote

Compress a file in Linux using tar command

To compress multiple files us tar command with cf option

tar -cf test.tar <<file1>> <<file2>> <<file3>>

To see the content of the tar files use tf option

tar -tf test.tar

To extract the contents from tar file use xf option-

tar -f test.tar

Use zcf command to reduce the file size

tar -zcf testzcf.tar <<file1>> <<file2>>

See the size of test.tar and testzcf.tar file. The content in the tar is same but the size of the testzcf.tar is reduced with zcf command

There are other utlitlies to reduce the file size i.e. to compress files

Use gzip to compress file-

gzip <<file>>

This created filename.gz file. See the size of the firstfile.txt when comperessed

You can also use bzip2 and xz to compress files

Decompress a file

To decompress the gzip file use gunzip command-

You can use bunzip2 and unxz to decompress file