Macintosh Terminal Pocket Guide

File Compression and Packaging

gzip	Compress files with GNU Zip.
gunzip	Uncompress GNU Zip files.
bzip2	Compress files in BZip format.
bunzip2	Uncompress BZip files.
bzcat	Compress/uncompress BZip files via standard input/output.
compress	Compress files with traditional Unix compression.
uncompress	Uncompress files with traditional Unix compression.
zcat	Compress/uncompress file via standard input/output (gzip or compress).
zip	Compress files in Windows Zip format.
unzip	Uncompress Windows Zip files.
tar	Package multiple files into a single file.

The Terminal has commands to compress files into a variety of formats and uncompress them. The most popular formats are GNU Zip (gzip), whose compressed files are named with the .gz suffix, and BZip, which uses the .bz2 suffix. Other common formats include Zip files from Windows systems (.zip suffix) and occasionally, classic Unix compression (.Z suffix).

If you come across a format we don’t cover, such as Macintosh sit files, Arc, Zoo, rar, and others, you can head over to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_archive_formats to learn more.