Tar Command Cheatsheet

The tar command is the standard way to archive and compress files and directories on Linux. It’s a bit of a Swiss army knife, with flags for creating, extracting, listing, and adding to archives, so this cheatsheet collects the commands you’ll actually reach for, with a short note on what each flag does.

Create an Archive

tar -cvf archive.tar file1 file2 directory/

This bundles file1, file2, and everything in directory/ into a single archive.tar. The flags are -c to create, -v for verbose output so you can see what’s being added, and -f to name the archive file.

Create a Compressed Archive

Add -z to compress with gzip, which is the most common choice and gives you a .tar.gz:

tar -czvf archive.tar.gz directory/

For better compression at the cost of speed, swap -z for -J to use xz, which produces a smaller .tar.xz:

tar -cJvf archive.tar.xz directory/

Extract an Archive

Use -x to extract. For a plain archive:

tar -xvf archive.tar

For a gzipped one, add -z again to decompress on the way out:

tar -xzvf archive.tar.gz

Modern versions of tar can usually detect the compression on their own, so tar -xvf often works regardless, but being explicit never hurts.

List the Contents

To see what’s inside an archive without extracting it, use -t:

tar -tvf archive.tar

Append Files to an Archive

Use -r to add a file to an existing archive. Note this only works on uncompressed .tar files, not gzipped ones:

tar -rvf archive.tar newfile.txt

That covers the everyday uses. Once you’re comfortable with these, the pattern is easy to remember: c to create, x to extract, t to list, and add z or J whenever compression is involved.

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