Auto extracting software for Linux?

Question

Do anyone know if there's some decent software which auto extracts anything which gets downloaded (to f.e. ~/Downloads)? If, let's say, I download x.tar, it would automatically extract it to x (folder).

Answer 1

You could maybe try a little mini-daemon along the lines of:

#!/bin/bash

DOWNLOAD_DIR=~/Downloads

while true;
do
    for file in $DOWNLOAD_DIR/*.tar*;
    do
        if [ -f $file ]
        then
            tar xf $file
            if [ $? -eq 0 ] # remove if successfully extracted
            then rm $file
            fi
        fi
    done
    sleep 5
done

Just start that running and away you go. I'm not sure what the performance implications of a bash forever loop would be, but just looking at it in top it doesn't seem to be too bad (i.e. it isn't in there.) You could boost the sleep time if necessary.

Answer 2

You could use fsniper, which makes use of inotify.

From the fsniper homepage:

Common uses include making a single drop directory for all things from a webbrowser etc, and having semi-intelligent scripts figure out what to do with those files. You write the scripts yourself.

Answer 3

It's not automatic, but "right click > extract here" for gnome extracts it into a folder of the same name.