Unzip Linux command Explained With Examples

ZIP is one of the most commonly used archiving utility.

In this quick tutorial we'll learn about how to use the unzip linux command to extract zip archives.

For this purpose, you can use either the zip or the tar command to do the same thing, but here we'll focus to the ZIP.

Install zip and unzip linux command line tools

By default, the zip/unzip command is not installed on most linux distros. So, you've to install it to use the commands. I've already explained it in a previous tutorial about linux zip command, check that out for more details.

Anyway, here's how to install them on Ubuntu, Linux Mint or any Debian based distos.

sudo apt-get install zip unzip

That's all you need to install on Ubuntu, if you're using Arch Linux, Frdora, opneSUSE, CentOS etc. etc. I'm quite sure that I don't need to tell you how to install them.

Linux unzip files

To extract the ZIP files, you can use the unzip linux command, an example below.

unzip my_archive.zip

This will extract the contents of the zip file inside the current working directory directory.

To extract a ZIP file located on different directory, you've to use the full path.

unzip ~/Documents/html/backup_2.zip

And if you need to unzip multiple files at once in Linux, append their names one by one or use the * wildcard.

unzip archive_1.zip archive_2.zip archive_3.zip

unzip *.zip     # To extract all the ZIP files present on a folder

Linux unzip files to specific directory

Many time you'll need to extract the ZIP archives to a specific directory, in that case, you've to use the -d flag along with the linux unzip command , typical syntax is like below.

unzip -d /path/to/destination/directory /path/to/archive.zip

As an example, have a look at the command below, though it's pretty arbitrary.

unzip -d ../text/ ../Documents/html/IoT_revolution.zip

Extract password protected ZIP files

If your ZIP file is password protected, then you have to use the -P option with linux unzip command.

unzip -P secret_ password my_archive.zip

A more legible example could be like below,

unzip -P "1t's_s3cr3t" secret_info.zip -d /tmp/secret/

Here read more about how you can password protect zip files.

Listing contents of a ZIP archive

If you need to just look inside a zip file without extracting it, the -l option is useful.

unzip -l ../Documents/html/IoT_revolution.zip

Archive:  ../Documents/html/IoT_revolution.zip
  Length      Date    Time    Name
---------  ---------- -----   ----
        0  2017-09-27 20:15   IoT_revolution/
   150977  2016-02-11 16:40   IoT_revolution/iot_img.jpg
     5851  2017-09-22 09:45   IoT_revolution/custom_bg.jpg
     7240  2017-09-27 20:15   IoT_revolution/iot_revolution_article.html
    48924  2017-09-22 09:50   IoT_revolution/style_min.css
---------                     -------
   212992                     5 files

Excluding specific files while unzipping

After getting an overview of the contents, if you need to unzip a file but want to exclude some specif file, you have to use the -x flag along with unzip command.

Let's take the IoT_revolution.zip archive, used in previous example. I want to exclude the images, using the * wildcard also applies here.

unzip ../Documents/html/IoT_revolution.zip -x *.jpg *.png

Another example, let's assume I want to exclude the style_min.css file of that archive.

unzip ../Documents/html/IoT_revolution.zip -x style_min.css

Extract zip files without preserving full path

If the ZIP file is structured with multiple folders and files, but you want to extract everything under a single directory, then use the -j option.

unzip -jq ../Downloads/Andromeda-master.zip

The -q option is used to suppress the output of the unzip command.

Conclusion

Well, that's all about how you can use the unzip linux command to extract ZIP files in various way. Have a look here to create and extract 7z files in linux.

These are pretty basic examples, for more details read the man page online, or with the man unzip command on your PC offline.