Bash - compress files with tar command in Linux

In this short article we are going to show how with tar command we are able to pack or compress files in Linux.

Quick solution:

tar -czvf new-archive-name.tar.gz /path/to/existing-directory-or-file

We can select two options:

• packing files together without compression,
• packing files together with compression.

Second one option is more useful when we want to move our files quickly between some devices.

1. tar command with compression

Below example will create compressed archive (gzip algorithm will be used), printing progress in console:

tar -czvf new-archive-name.tar.gz /path/to/existing-directory-or-file

or as:

tar -c -z -v -f new-archive-name.tar.gz /path/to/existing-directory-or-file

Where:

• -c creates new archive for indicated files (required),
• -z uses gzip compression (optional),
• -v displays in terminal progress, printing file paths - it is verbose mode (optional),
• -f allows to select output archive file path (optional).

Example console output:

root@debian:~# tar -czvf reports_2020-01.tar.gz reports/2020-01/
reports/2020-01/log.1.txt
reports/2020-01/log.2.txt
reports/2020-01/log.3.txt
reports/2020-01/log.4.txt
reports/2020-01/users/log.1.txt
reports/2020-01/users/log.2.txt
reports/2020-01/users/log.3.txt
#

When we don't want to print file paths we can remove -v parameter:

tar -czf new-archive-name.tar.gz /path/to/existing-directory-or-file

Example console output:

root@debian:~# tar -czvf reports_2020-01.tar.gz reports/2020-01/
#

2. tar command without compression

Below example will create not compressed archive, printing progress in console:

tar -cvf new-archive-name.tar /path/to/existing-directory-or-file

Where -z parameter was removed to turn off compression mode.

Example console output:

root@debian:~# tar -cvf reports_2020-01.tar reports/2020-01/
reports/2020-01/log.1.txt
reports/2020-01/log.2.txt
reports/2020-01/log.3.txt
reports/2020-01/log.4.txt
reports/2020-01/users/log.1.txt
reports/2020-01/users/log.2.txt
reports/2020-01/users/log.3.txt
#

Similar to above example when we don't want to print file paths we can remove additionally -v parameter:

tar -cf new-archive-name.tar /path/to/existing-directory-or-file

Example console output:

root@debian:~# tar -cf reports_2020-01.tar reports/2020-01/
#

3. tar and many input file paths

It is possible to indicate many paths to files or directories in following way:

tar -czvf new-archive-name.tar.gz /path/to/existing-directory /path/to/existing-file-1 /path/to/existing-file-2 /path/to/other/place/*.txt

That will compress existing-directory, existing-file-1, existing-file-2 and all txt files for located in the /path/to/other/place/.

See also

1. Bash - extract *.tar.gz file in Linux