Gzip is a popular compression algorithm that reduces the size of a file while keeping the original file mode, ownership, and timestamp. This algorithm is often used to compress web elements for faster page loading.

By convention, a file compressed with gzip ends with either .gz or .z.

This article explains how to open (or unzip) .gz files.

Unzipping gz File #

On Linux and macOS, you can decompress a .gz file using the gzip utility. The syntax is as follows:

gzip -d file.gz

The command will restore the compressed file to its original state and remove the .gz file.

To keep the compressed file pass the -k option to the command:

gzip -dk file.gz

Another command that you can use to decompress a .gz file is gunzipThis command is basically an alias to file with gzip -d.

To open a .gz file with gunzip simply pass the file name to the command:

gunzip file.gz

If you’re on a desktop environment and the command-line is not your thing, you can use your File manager. To open (unzip) a .gz file, right-click on the file you want to decompress and select “Extract”.

Windows users need to install additional software such as 7zip to open .gz files.

Extracting tar.gz File #

Gzip algorithm is designed to compress only a single file. Files that end in .tar.gz are .tar archives compressed with gzip.

To extract a tar.gz file, use tar command with the -xf options followed by the compressed archive name:

tar -xf archive.tar.gz

The command will auto-detect the compression type and will extract the archive in the current working directory.

Conclusion #

To decompress a .gz file, use the gunzip command followed by the file name.

If you have any questions, please leave a comment below.