Extract files contained in archive.tar.gz to new directory named archive

Question

I have a directory containing about 800 .tgz archives, each containing about 10 files. Effectively, I want to convert each archive into a directory of the same name. Is there a simple one line command to do this, or should I write a script?

You can specify that in the command itself `tar -xvzf filename.tar.gz -C /desired/path` — Aravind.HU, Feb 21 '13 at 17:30
-C will not work if dir does not exists. Better run: `mkdir -p dirpath && tar xzf archive.tar.gz -C dirpath` — Noam Manos, Sep 03 '18 at 14:47

score 41 · Accepted Answer · edited Nov 04 '21 at 20:48

41

Update since GNU tar 1.28: use --one-top-level, see https://www.gnu.org/software/tar/manual/tar.html#index-one_002dtop_002dlevel_002c-summary

Older versions need to script this. You can specify the directory that the extract is placed in by using the tar -C option.

The script below assumes that the directories do not exist and must be created. If the directories do exist the script will still work - the mkdir will simply fail.

tar -xvzf archive.tar.gx -C archive_dir

e.g.

for a in *.tar.gz
do
    a_dir=${a%.tar.gz}
    mkdir --parents $a_dir
    tar -xvzf $a -C $a_dir
done

edited Nov 04 '21 at 20:48

heinrichmartin

52
5

answered Feb 21 '13 at 17:44

suspectus

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Yes, I thought I would probably need a script - thanks for the confirmation. – si_2012 Feb 21 '13 at 17:59
The script worked well but I needed to add "mkdir $a_dir". – cerebrou Feb 21 '17 at 06:32

yatsek · Answer 2 · 2020-06-17T10:17:26.390

19

If modern enough GNU tar is being taken into account then this should be top answer here: https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/478341/34069

For brevity this is extract:

tar -xvf bash.html_node.tar.gz --one-top-level

It extracts archive into new directory named after archive file name.

edited Jun 17 '20 at 10:17

answered Dec 10 '19 at 10:52

yatsek

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1
10
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No it shouldn't, `--one-top-level does` not exist in the GNU version of tar. Meaning it's not supported on OSX and some versions of Linux. – Ian Smith Jun 15 '20 at 18:01
2

@IanSmith - ok, good point - but you mean probably "it does not exist in BSD version ..." – yatsek Jun 17 '20 at 10:16
Yep :), it definitely should be included. – Ian Smith Jun 17 '20 at 20:00
4

The option --one-top-level was added to GNU tar in version 1.28, released 2014-07-28, see release notes here: https://www.gnu.org/software/tar/ – Johannes Müller Oct 18 '20 at 08:22

Shirish Singh · Answer 3 · 2018-10-23T12:21:31.143

4

Create a folder in which you want to extract like this mkdir archive and pass folder name with -C while extracting, tar -xvf archive.zip -C archive

edited Oct 23 '18 at 12:21

answered Oct 23 '18 at 08:54

Shirish Singh

797
7
17

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Dec 24 '20 at 20:57

To extract files from one directory to second directory while keeping the filename in the second directory i.e without the complete file path and file extension

%sh
for file in /mnt/dir1/*.tar.gz; 
do 
y=${file##*/}; 
z=${y%%.*}; 
mkdir -p /mnt/dir2/$z && tar -xzvf $file -C /mnt/dir2/$z;
done

score -4 · Answer 5 · answered Sep 12 '15 at 22:14

-4

Well, if you run $ tar -zxf some-archive.tar.gz -C ., (note the dot at the end) a new directory called some-archive/ will be created in the directory you are currently in.

Maybe this is what you meant by your question? This is what I generally want so it may work for you as well.

answered Sep 12 '15 at 22:14

Felipe

11,557
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103

1

While this is true, it doesn't answer the question. `-C .` is redundant because the default output directly is the current directory anyway. – David Cook Feb 24 '19 at 22:50

Extract files contained in archive.tar.gz to new directory named archive

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