If you’re looking to archive your files and directories, regardless of your OS, “zip” is the format that is most popular and supported by the largest number of clients and operating systems. In this tutorial, we’ll go over how to use the applications in Linux to compress files and directories.
The zip file format supports lossless data compression. Its origins go back to 1993, designed by Phil Katz of PKWARE and Gary Conway of Infinity Design Concepts.
Compressing your data has multiple benefits, namely: less storage is used on your hard drive, data is quicker and more efficient to transfer and multiple files are combined into one file, making it more suitable for email and other applications.
The “zip” application on Linux allows you to zip files, and the “unzip” application allows you to extract compressed files.
Installing Zip and Unzip
To get started with zip on Linux, you’ll need to install it, along with unzip (if they haven’t been installed already).
Install Zip/Unzip in Debian/Ubuntu/Mint
$ sudo apt install zip $ sudo apt install unzip
Install Zip/Unzip in Redhat, Centos or Fedora
$ yum install zip $ yum install unzip
Installing in other versions of Linux
If you’re using a different version of Linux, simply use the typical command you’d use to install an application for the apps “zip” and “unzip”.
Using the zip Command
If you are looking to compress files or directories, you’ll need to use the zip command.
To find out which version of zip you have installed, you can type:
$ zip -v
To use the zip command to compress files or directories, the syntax is as follows:
$ zip [-options] [-b path] [-t mmddyyyy] [-n suffixes] [zipfile list] [-xi list]
Zipping Files
To zip a single file, type:
$ zip archive.zip file
If you’d like to zip multiple files, you can list multiple names in the command, like so:
$ zip archive.zip file1 file2 file3 file4 file5
Either of the commands above would create an archive named “archive.zip”.
Zipping Directories
If you’d like to zip all the files within a directory, you can use the -r switch with zip, which will include all files within the directory recursively. An example of the command to zip a directory is as follows:
$ zip -r archive.zip directory
You can combine multiple directories like so:
$ zip -r archive.zip directory1 directory2 directory3
You can combine directories and files like so:
$ zip -r archive.zip directory1 directory2 directory3 file1 file2 file3
Other Useful zip Commands
The zip command has a number of other switches available which can be very useful, depending on your use case. We’ll go over some examples below.
Password Protecting Your Zip Archive
You can password-protect your resulting zip arhive using the -e switch, like this:
$ zip -e archive.zip file1 file2
You’ll then be asked to insert your password and confirm it before your archive is created.
Quiet Output
If you don’t want zip to print to the console, you can use the -q quiet switch. An example is as follows:
$ zip -q archive.zip file1 file2
Splitting Your Archive Across Multiple Files
If you need to split your archive up across multiple files to, for example, store the archive across multiple CDs, you can use the -s split switch.
This switch supports a multiplier which can be in the following formats:
- k, for kilobytes
- m, for megabytes
- g, for gigabytes
- t, for terabytes
An example command to create an archive and split it across multiple 700MB files is as follows:
$ zip -s 700m -r archive.zip directory
Conclusion
It’s relatively easy to create archives using lossless data compression in Linux using the zip command. There are numerous benefits to archiving your data. You can use the unzip command to extract your archived data.
You can learn more about zip on the zip man page or by using the -h help switch, like this:
$ zip -h
The output will be similar to the below, but may vary, depending on which version you have installed:
Copyright (c) 1990-2008 Info-ZIP - Type 'zip "-L"' for software license. Zip 3.0 (July 5th 2008). Usage: zip [-options] [-b path] [-t mmddyyyy] [-n suffixes] [zipfile list] [-xi list] The default action is to add or replace zipfile entries from list, which can include the special name - to compress standard input. If zipfile and list are omitted, zip compresses stdin to stdout. -f freshen: only changed files -u update: only changed or new files -d delete entries in zipfile -m move into zipfile (delete OS files) -r recurse into directories -j junk (don't record) directory names -0 store only -l convert LF to CR LF (-ll CR LF to LF) -1 compress faster -9 compress better -q quiet operation -v verbose operation/print version info -c add one-line comments -z add zipfile comment -@ read names from stdin -o make zipfile as old as latest entry -x exclude the following names -i include only the following names -F fix zipfile (-FF try harder) -D do not add directory entries -A adjust self-extracting exe -J junk zipfile prefix (unzipsfx) -T test zipfile integrity -X eXclude eXtra file attributes -y store symbolic links as the link instead of the referenced file -e encrypt -n don't compress these suffixes -h2 show more help
