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Herman Toothrot
Asked: 2015-11-04 04:33:22 +0800 CST

how can I extract multiple gzip files in directory and subdirectories?

  • 772

I have tried both gzip and gunzip commands but I get either

gunzip *.gz 
gzip: invalid option -- 'Y' 

gunzip -S-1800-01-01-000000-g01.h5.gz  
gzip: compressed data not read
 from a terminal. Use -f to force decompression. For help, type: gzip -h

If I try the -f option it takes a very long time to work on one single file and the command is not executed successfully. Am I missing something?

gzip

3 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    You can use below command.

    Go to the directory where your .gz file is and run command: 

    for f in *.gz ; do gunzip -c "$f" > /home/$USER/"${f%.*}" ; done

    It will extract all file with original name and store it to current user home directory(/home/username). You can change it to somewhere else.

    EDIT :

    gunzip *.gz

    This command also will work. But, by default, it replaces original file.

    • 41

  2. Option # 1 : unzip multiple files using single quote (short version)

    gunzip '*.gz'

    Note that *.gz word is put in between two single quote, so that shell will not recognize it as a wild card character.

    Option # 2 : unzip multiple files using shell for loop (long version)

    for g in *.gz; do gunzip $g; done

    The Source

    EDIT :

    I have just tried :

    gunzip -dk *.gz

    and it worked.

    -d to decompress and k to keep original files.

    • 13

  3. Linux Users:

    Use the following command for extracting minimum amount of .gz files in the current directory and its sub directories

    gunzip *.gz

    Use the following command for extracting any number of .gz files in the current directory and its sub directories

    sudo find . -name "*.gz" | xargs gunzip
    • 4