Just Unzip It

If you have a zip compressed file, you can unzip it in the Linux command line. The unzip command in Linux is quite versatile and you can use it do a lot more than just extracting zip file.

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I have discussed how to gzip a folder in Linux in the past. It's time to see various usage of the unzip command. Before you do that, make sure that unzip has been installed on your system. You can use your distribution's package manager to install the command.

Just Zip It free download - Ultimate ZIP Cracker, Quick Zip, Just Cause, and many more programs. EzyZip is a free zip and unzip online file compression tool that lets you zip files into an archive. It also supports unzip, allowing you to uncompress archived zip, zipx, 7z, rar, cab, tar, txz, tbz2, bz2, iso, lzh, deb, and tgz files. This includes password encrypted archive files! On a Mac, you can just double-click the zip file and it will unzip. A regular folder icon will appear next to the zip file icon. On PC, you'll need to right-click the zip file, choose 'Extract all' and follow the prompts. In the Extraction Wizard, choose where you want the file to be saved on your computer.

On Ubuntu and Debian, you can use this command:

Once you have verified that, let's see how to use unzip in Linux terminal.

Unzip command in Linux

The unzip command has a really simple syntax:

If you use it to extract a zip file without any option, it will extract all the files in the current directory:

And that's not what you would want most of the time. It'll just flood your current directory with all the extracted files.

1. Unzip to a directory

The expected behavior is that you should have the files extracted to a certain directory, normally with the same name as the zip file.

You can specify the target directory where you want to extract the files.

If the target directory doesn't exist, it will be created. You cannot create nested directories in this manner though.

Do note that you can also put the target directory at the end but not all options can be added at the end.

2. See the content of the zip file without extracting

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If you want to see what the zip file contains, you son't always have to extract it first. You can use the -l option and it will show the content of the zip file.

As you can see, it also shows the timestamp of the files and the actual size of the individual files in bytes.

If you want, you can get more information like the compressed size, compression ratio by using the verbose mode with -v option. The CRC-32 in the output is the cyclic redundancy check.

3. Overwrite all the files without prompting

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If there are already files with the same name in the directory where you are extracting the files, you'll be promoted for each such files. You can force overwrite all the files with option -o.

4. Do not overwrite any files -n

If you don't want any existing file to be overwritten by newly extracted files, use the -n option (stands for never overwrite).

5. Update files and create if necessary

This is slightly different the overwriting all the files. In this case, only those files will will be overwritten that have newer timestamp than the existing files. If a file doesn't exist, it will be created.

You can achieve that with option -u:

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6. Freshen existing files but create none

Slight change from the previous example here. In this one, it will update the existing files if they have older timestamp but it won't create any new files even if they don' exist.

The option -f allows you to do that:

7. Extract in quiet mode

When you unzip a file, it shows all the files that have been extracted on the display. Now imagine a zip file that has hundreds of files in it. If you extract it, your screen will be cluttered with the output.

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You can use the quiet mode with option -q and you won't see anything on the display:

8. Exclude files from extraction

Capture screen mojave. You can also exclude certain files or certain type of files from being extracted.

In my example, let's say I don't want to extract any .eps files.

Those were some of the most common examples of the unzip command in Linux. You can always check its man page to learn about more options.

Do you use some other option with unzip frequently? Why not share it with us in the comments?

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