What’s a Ball of Tar and a Zipper Have to do with My Linux Box?

Tarball files ( .tar ) are file archives commonly used in Linux and Unix file systems to store data backups and to assist in transferring of multiple files and directories quickly. Usually, tarbal ( .tar ) files are compressed with the GZIP library in order to save space, and make transferring quicker. Gzip’d tarball files are often have a .gz or .gzip file extension succeeding the .tar, and in equal are commonly used to backup and store data, as well as for transferring multiple files and directories around on the internet quickly and easily.

Why View the Contents of an Archive Without Extracting It?

There may be occasions when you simply want to see what is inside of a tar gzip file without having to actually extract the contents. This is useful in cases when you simply want to selectively choose which files and directories to extract from the archive, without having to extract everything, and then backtrack and delete what you didn’t really want to extract. These quick commands will help you view the contents of a tarball .tar.gz or .tar.gzip file.

How to View an Archives Contents Without Extracting It

To view the contents of a tar.gz file without having to extract it, we will utilize the tar application with the following switches:

This above command will output a list of files contained in the archive.

If the archive contains multiple files and directories, it is recommended to force the output to less for easier viewing, as the following;

Now you will be able to easily work with .tar, .tar.gz, .tar.gzip, .gzip, and .gz archive files quicker, saving yourself time and disk space.