How to Create and Extract tar.gz and tar.bz2 files on Ubuntu / Linux

The most common compressed archive file format in Linux is the tar.gz format. Tar file is an archive file format. Tar.gz is a compressed tar file.

Create tar.gz archives

The tar command can be used to create tar.gz archives.

tar czf new-tar-file-name.tar.gz file-or-folder-to-archive

Here is the command explanation:

• c - create new archive.
• z - compress the archive using gzip.
• f - use archive file.
• new-tar-file-name.tar.gz - the name of the tar.gz to create.
• file-or-folder-to-archive - the name of the folder we want to archive.

Adding multiple directories

tar -czf new-tar-file-name.tar.gz file1 file2 folder1 folder2

Extract tar archives

gz archives

tar -xzf tar-file-name.tar.gz

Here is the command explanation:

• x - extract the archive.
• z - uncompress the archive using gzip.
• f - use archive file.
• tar-file-name.tar.gz - the name of the tar.gz to create.

The tar command will extract all the files/folders in the archive to the current directory. To extract to specific location modify the command as follows

tar -xzf tar-file-name.tar.gz /path/to/location

bz2 archives

Extracting tar.bz2 (bzip2 file) is very similar to the way you extract tar.gz file. Instead of using the -z flag you need to use the -j flag for the bzip2 format

tar -xvjf tar-file-name.tar.gz

Here is the command explanation:

• x - extract the archive.
• v - verbose. show information as files are being extracted.
• j - filter the archive through bzip2
• f - use archive file.
• tar-file-name.tar.gz - the name of the tar.gz to create.

The tar command will extract all the files/folders in the archive to the current directory.

Check out the following tutorial to learn more: