How to Compress Files and Folders via SSH

Overview

Compressing files and folders is essential for creating backups, preparing files for transfer, and saving disk space. Linux provides several compression tools, with tar + gzip and zip being the most commonly used.

tar + gzip (Most Common on Linux)

Create a compressed archive

tar -czf archive-name.tar.gz /path/to/directory/

Example — compress your entire site:

tar -czf site-backup.tar.gz /home/username/public_html/

Create with verbose output

tar -czvf site-backup.tar.gz /home/username/public_html/

The -v (verbose) flag lists each file as it’s added.

Extract a compressed archive

tar -xzf archive-name.tar.gz

Extract to a specific directory

tar -xzf archive-name.tar.gz -C /target/directory/

List contents without extracting

tar -tzf archive-name.tar.gz

Extract a single file from an archive

tar -xzf archive-name.tar.gz path/to/specific/file.txt

tar + bzip2 (Better Compression)

bzip2 compresses more than gzip but is slower:

# Create
tar -cjf archive-name.tar.bz2 /path/to/directory/

# Extract
tar -xjf archive-name.tar.bz2

zip and unzip

The zip format is commonly used when sharing files with Windows users or when cPanel backups are in zip format.

Create a zip archive

zip archive-name.zip file1.txt file2.txt

Zip an entire directory recursively

zip -r archive-name.zip /path/to/directory/

Extract a zip archive

unzip archive-name.zip

Extract to a specific directory

unzip archive-name.zip -d /target/directory/

List contents of a zip file

unzip -l archive-name.zip

gzip and gunzip (Single File Compression)

For compressing individual files (not directories):

gzip largefile.sql          # Creates largefile.sql.gz (removes original)
gunzip largefile.sql.gz     # Decompresses back to largefile.sql

Keep the original file

gzip -k largefile.sql       # Creates .gz but keeps the original

Useful Flags Reference

tar flags

zip flags

Practical Hosting Examples

Back up your entire site

tar -czf ~/backups/site-$(date +%Y%m%d).tar.gz /home/username/public_html/

This creates a timestamped backup like site-20250101.tar.gz.

Compress site but exclude cache and logs

tar -czf site-backup.tar.gz --exclude='*.log' --exclude='cache' /home/username/public_html/

Compress a database dump

gzip database-backup.sql
# Result: database-backup.sql.gz (70-90% smaller)

Extract a migration package

cd /home/username/public_html/
tar -xzf ~/migration-package.tar.gz

Create a password-protected zip

zip -re secure-backup.zip /home/username/sensitive-data/

Compression Format Comparison

Tips

• Use tar.gz for Linux-to-Linux transfers and backups — it’s the standard.
• Use zip when files need to be opened on Windows or shared cross-platform.
• Always compress database dumps with gzip — SQL files compress extremely well (often 80-90% reduction).
• For very large archives, use screen to protect against SSH disconnections during the compression process.
• Use tar -tzf or unzip -l to inspect an archive’s contents before extracting.