Compress files from OS X terminal?

Question

In the Finder, there is this wonderful ability to right click on a file or directory, select compress from the drop-down, and end up with a zipped file.

Is it possible to do the same thing from the terminal?

Answer 1

It's called zip.

This adds the file file to the archive file.zip:

zip file.zip file

Of course, to add more files, just add them as arguments to the command. Check out man zip for more options.

Often, you'll want to skip including those pesky .DS_Store files, for example compressing the whole folder folder into folder.zip:

zip -vr folder.zip folder/ -x "*.DS_Store"

Answer 2

To compress the files exactly as the Finder command would compress them, use:

ditto -c -k --sequesterRsrc --keepParent src_directory archive.zip

---

See man ditto for details:

 The command:
       ditto -c -k --sequesterRsrc --keepParent src_directory archive.zip
 will create a PKZip archive similarly to the Finder's Compress function-
 ality.

Answer 3

with considering the above answers, If you want to compress a directory or folder with the zip command:

zip -r directory.zip directory

Explanation:

zip command for zipping

directory.zip is the destination file that will be created after running the zip command.

direcotry source folder which you want to be compressed.

-r flag will recursively iterate in folders and subfolders.

Answer 4

There is tar(1) and gzip (or bzip2 or lzma). Tar is used to roll a number of files into one archive, while the one of the other three is used to compress it.

On a command line, you will call tar with a couple of options to create an archive and gzip it.

E.g.:

tar -c -z -f myarchive.tar.gz -C /home/username Downloads

This willl -c reate a g -z ipped archive named -f ile from the -C hange-folder-to directory and will contain all files in the folder Downloads. The -C option is optional and the source-file arguments will be taken from the current folder if omitted.

For reference: tar tutorial

Answer 5

If you wish to compress specific files you can add multiple file names like so:

zip my_archive_name.zip some_file_a some_file_b some_file_c

and that results in an archive that only has the files specified