gzip is used to compress and decompress files Files compression helps on saving disk space and ... ... trasfering files faster. use -k to keep the original file note that gzip cannot compress a folder. You can combine find and gzip find /directory/to/compress -type f -exec gzip {} \; or ls -l /directory/to/compress | gzip foo.txt.gz gzip file.txt → compresses one file gzip -d file.txt.gz → decompresses one file gzip -v file.txt file1.txt → compresses multiple files
b - bzip2 command
bzip2 is used to compress and decompress files like gzip, bzip2 deletes the original file. Use -k to keep it .bz2 extension shows that it is a compress file with bzip2 bzip2 -k 1.txt → compresses a file and keep the original bzip2 -d 1.txt.bz2 → decompresses a file bzip2 -d -f 1.txt.bz2 → decompreses a file and overwrite bzip2 -k 1.txt 2.txt → compresses multiple files in multiple files bzmore 1.txt.bz2 → show information of the compressed file