Linux zip all files and directory

Zip all files in directory?

Is there a way to zip all files in a given directory with the zip command? I’ve heard of using *.* , but I want it to work for extensionless files, too.

Have you tried navigating one-level up from your desired directory and doing zip myarch.zip mydir/* ?

*.* means any file with a dot. In cp/m and dos all files had a dot, and it made you type it (could not do * ). Therefore people came to see *.* as all files. Eventually Microsoft added long-filenames that could have zero, or more dots. To find a file that has a dot on windows you have to type *.*.* .

5 Answers 5

You can just use * ; there is no need for *.* . File extensions are not special on Unix. * matches zero or more characters—including a dot. So it matches foo.png , because that’s zero or more characters (seven, to be exact).

Note that * by default doesn’t match files beginning with a dot (neither does *.* ). This is often what you want. If not, in bash, if you shopt -s dotglob it will (but will still exclude . and .. ). Other shells have different ways (or none at all) of including dotfiles.

Alternatively, zip also has a -r (recursive) option to do entire directory trees at once (and not have to worry about the dotfile problem):

where mydir is the directory containing your files. Note that the produced zip will contain the directory structure as well as the files. As peterph points out in his comment, this is usually seen as a good thing: extracting the zip will neatly store all the extracted files in one subdirectory.

You can also tell zip to not store the paths with the -j / —junk-paths option.

The zip command comes with documentation telling you about all of its (many) options; type man zip to see that documentation. This isn’t unique to zip; you can get documentation for most commands this way.

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How Do I Zip All Files In A Directory In Linux?

The zip is a utility to compress files and directories with no data loss. It is also used as a file package utility, and all distributions of Linux support it. The zip file is useful when you have low bandwidth for sending data between 2 servers; the user can zip the file and send it. It consumes less storage which will make them easy to store and transfer.

This article will demonstrate the methods to zip all files in a directory. The content for the post is as follows:

• Installation of zip
• How to zip Files in Linux?
• Method 1: Zip All Files in a Directory Through CLI
• Method 2: Zip All Files in a Directory Through GUI

Installation of zip

In most Linux distributions, it comes with pre-installation, but users can also install it manually. Use the following command depending on the distribution:

For Debian/Ubuntu:

For CentOS/RHEL:

To verify whether the zip utility is installed or not, run the zip command with “–version”:

Zip version 3.0 is installed in the operating system.

The syntax for the zip command is given below:

Syntax

$ zip [File_Name.zip] [Source_File/Directory]

Type the “zip” keyword, the file name with .zip extension, and then the source file/directory name.

How do zip Files in Linux?

For a better understanding of zipping any files in Linux, check out the examples below:

Example 1: Zipping a File

We have a “date.txt” file in our home directory. Let’s zip it using the zip utility. Run the given command in the terminal:

The date.txt file is zipped with the name date.zip. Furthermore, the zip command has also displayed the percentage of compression.

Example 2: Zipping Multiple Files

To zip the multiple files, type the file using the zip utility as follows:

$ zip All_Files.zip file1.txt file2.txt file3.txt

All the files have been compressed and stored in the “All_Files.zip”.

Method 1: Zip All Files in a Directory Through CLI

For compressing all the files in the directory, check out the implementation of the example below.

Example 1: Compressing the Directory Including All files

To compress all files present in the directory, use the “r” flag, which will compress the entire directory, including its files:

$ sudo zip -r Files.zip /Henry

The directory will be compressed including all files.

Let’s check the created zip file for the directory.

The zip file with the name “Files.zip” has been created.

Example 2: Compressing the Directory Including All files to Another Directory

To compress the entire directory to the specified directory you can specify the path before the zip file name. Run the given command in the terminal:

$ sudo zip -r /home/itslinuxfoss/Desktop/Files.zip Henry

The directory has been compressed to the “Desktop” directory.

Let’s verify it using the “ls” command:

The zip file is present in the “Desktop” directory.

Method 2: Zip All Files in a Directory Through GUI

For zipping all files in Directory, the GUI method is also available. Just right-click on the specific directory which you want to compress and click on the “compress” option from the drop-down:

Once you click on the compress option it will ask you to enter the name of the zip file and choose the “.zip” extension from the given drop-down. After that, click on the create button as shown in the below image:

The zip file will be created which can be seen in the following screenshot:

That’s how all files in a directory are zipped in Linux.

Conclusion

In Linux, zip is a utility to compress files or directories without changing their data. To zip all the files in a directory user can use the “r” flag in the command or zip the directory manually by right-clicking and hitting the “compress” option. This write-up has briefly illustrated the method to zip files and directories using the zip utility.

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