Difference between .tar, .gz, .tar.gz, .tgz, .zip

We can see different kinds of file extensions while downloading the dataset. Some of the most common archiving and compression formats are discussed below -

1) .tar

• It stands for tape archive.
• It simply puts multiple files together
• It does not reduce the size i.e no compression technique

Command to archive files in terminal (MAC):

tar -cf files.tar file1 file2

Command to unarchive files in terminal (MAC):

tar -xf files.tar

Note: tar is in-built in Mac

2) .gz

• It is produced by gzip compression tool
• It compresses only one file
• If you compress multiple files with gzip, it produces multiple .gz files
• It is common in Unix/Linux

Command to compress file in terminal (MAC):

gzip file

Command to decompress file in terminal (MAC):

gzip -d file.gz

Note: gzip is in-built in Mac

3) .tar.gz

• It is a combination of .tar and .gz i.e. it is a tar archive file that has been compressed with gzip
• It is mostly common in Unix/Linux

Command to both archive and compress files in terminal (MAC):

tar -czf files.tar.gz file1 file2

Command to both unarchive and decompress files in terminal (MAC):

tar -xzf files.tar.gz

4) .tgz

• .tar.gz file is often called as .tgz

5) .zip

• It does the purpose of tar as well as have built-in compression
• It is mostly common in Windows rather than Unix

Command to both archive and compress files in terminal (MAC):

zip files.zip file1 file2

Command to both unarchive and decompress files in terminal (MAC):

unzip files.zip

Note: unzip in not in-built in Mac and to install it use

brew install unzip