tar

Package and extract file archives, supports multiple compression formats.

Compress Extract Append List

$ tar -c -f backup.tar

Output file (-f)Source files/directories

Compression format

gzip

bzip2

zstd

lzip

lzma

lzop

compress

Change working directory (-C)

Change to this directory before archiving

Stay on same disk partition (--one-file-system)Remove files after archiving (--remove-files)Follow symlinks (-h)Optimize for sparse files (-S)Skip unreadable files (--ignore-failed-read)

Exclude files (--exclude)

Exclude list file (-X)

Exclude cache dirs marked with CACHEDIR.TAG (--exclude-caches)Exclude backup and lock files (--exclude-backups)Exclude version control dirs (--exclude-vcs)

Set owner (--owner)

Username or username:ID

Set group (--group)

Group name or group name:ID

Set permissions (--mode)

Permission setting, e.g. u+w

Set modification time (--mtime)

Date string or filename

Use numeric user/group IDs (--numeric-owner)

No sorting

By name

By file order

Verbose output (-v)Show totals (--totals)Preserve access permissions (--acls)Preserve SELinux (--selinux)Preserve extended attributes (--xattrs)

Progress interval (--checkpoint)

Show progress every N records

Package format

GNU

old GNU

POSIX (pax)

POSIX (ustar)

Archive label (-V)

Examples

# Compress current directory
tar -czvf archive.tar.gz .

# Compress multiple files/directories
tar -czvf backup.tar.gz file1.txt dir/

# Exclude log files
tar -czvf archive.tar.gz --exclude="*.log" .

# Use exclude file list
tar -czvf archive.tar.gz -X exclude.txt .