How to unpack .tgz file on a Linux

Unpacking .tgz files command

The syntax is as follows for the tar command:
$ tar zxvf fileNameHere.tgz
The GNU/tar version can automatically detect the file type and apply appropriate compression methods when unzipping those files. All you have to do is skip the -z option:
$ tar xvf fileNameHere.tgz
Or try the geeky bash pipe based syntax using the combination of gunzip command and tar command:
$ gunzip -c fileNameHere.tgz | tar xvf -

Examples

In this example, unpack a file called backups.tgz, enter:

tar zxvf backups.tgz
 
## OR ##
tar -zxvf backups.tgz
 
## Extracting .tgz file on a Linux in the current directory ##
tar zxvf demo.tgz

Extracting the .tgz file in different directory

Then we can use the following syntax using shell pipes too:

gunzip -c backups.tgz | tar xvf -

Sample outputs:

tar: Removing leading '/' from member names
x Users/vivek/Downloads/db.txt
x Users/vivek/Downloads/resume.txt
x Users/vivek/Downloads/vendors.txt
x Users/vivek/Downloads/sales.txt

How to unzip the .tgz file using the terminal into a specific folder (dir)

To unpack and put files in a different folder (directory) say /tmp/data, enter:

# NOTE: -C /path/to/folder/ #
tar zxvf backups.tgz -C /tmp/data/
ls -l /tmp/data/

How to extract specific file(s) from .tgz

First, you can list files in .tgz using the following syntax:
$ tar -ztvf {filenme.tgz}
$ tar -ztvf backup.tgz
$ tar -ztvf backup.tgz | grep 'file1'
For multiple files try using the egrep command or pager such as less:
$ tar -ztvf backup.tgz | less
$ tar -ztvf backup.tgz | grep -E 'file1|file2'
$ tar -ztvf backup.tgz | grep -E 'rsyslog.conf|xattr.conf'
Notw down the path:

-rw-r--r-- root/root      1382 2020-02-11 20:52 etc/rsyslog.conf
-rw-r--r-- root/root       642 2019-09-24 07:47 etc/xattr.conf

Next, use the tar command to extract a single file(s) from a large tarball as follows:
$ tar -zxvf backups.tgz etc/rsyslog.conf etc/xattr.conf
You can state output directory too. For example, extract to the /tmp/outputs/. Use the mkdir command to make the dir:
$ mkdir -v /tmp/outputs/
Now, type:
$ tar -zxvf backups.tgz -C /tmp/outputs/ etc/rsyslog.conf etc/xattr.conf
Verify it using the ls command:
$ ls -l /tmp/outputs/
$ ls -l /tmp/outputs/etc/

How to untar .tgz file and extract the specific single file(s) {click to enlarge}

Understanding the tar command unpack .tgz file options

The options used so far as follows:

• -z : Uncompress the resulting archive with gunzip command or gunzip command.
• -x : Extract to disk from the archive.
• -v : Produce verbose output i.e. show progress and file names while extracting files.
• -t : List files stored in the archive.
• -f backup.tgz : Read the archive from the specified file called backup.tgz.
• -C /tmp/data : Unpack/extract files in /tmp/data instead of the default current directory.
• etc/rsyslog.conf or etc/xattr.conf : Extract these two files from the archive.

Getting help is easy, use the man command/info command (or pass the --help option to read documentation installed on your machine:
$ man tar
# gnu info pages #
$ info tar
$ man gzip
$ man gunzip
# The '--help' may not work on BSD/macOS & Unix.
# GNU/Linux only option #
$ tar --help
$ gunzip --help

Summing up

You learned about unpacking and extracting .tgz files on Linux and Unix-like systems. One can also use long options that are easy to recall like as follows instead of short command-line options:

## instead of short option
tar zxvf /path/to/archive.tgz
tar zxvf /path/to/archive.tgz -C /path/to/dest/dir1
 
## get specific files only ##
tar ztvf /path/to/archive.tgz | less
tar zxvf /path/to/archive.tgz -C file1 file2
tar zxvf /path/to/archive.tgz -C /path/to/dest/dir1 path/file1 path/file2
 
## you can use long options ##
tar --gzip --extract --verbose --file=/path/to/archive.tgz
tar --gzip --extract --verbose --file=/path/to/archive.tgz --directory=/path/to/dest/dir1/

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I'm Vivek Gite, and I write about Linux, macOS, Unix, IT, programming, infosec, and open source. Subscribe to my RSS feed or email newsletter for updates.