How to extract files to another directory using 'tar' command?

Question

How to extract files to another directory using 'tar' command?

I thought tar archive.tar /users/mylocation would work, but it doesn't. How can I do that?

tar

4 years ago by Bharatgxwzm

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**akshay1995** · Answer 1 · 2021-07-19T11:17:57

To extract an archive to a directory different from the current, use the -C, or --directory, tar option, as in



tar -xf archive.tar -C /target/directory

Note that the target directory has to exist before running that command (it can be created by mkdir /target/directory).

**RoliMishra** · Answer 2 · 2021-07-20T12:38:05

Note that if your tarball already contains a directory name you want to change, add the --strip-components=1 option:

tar xf archive.tar -C /target/directory --strip-components=1

**pankajshivnani123** · Answer 3 · 2021-07-22T12:09:54

Combining the previous answers and comments:

To simply extract the contents and create target directory if it is missing:

mkdir -p /target/directory && tar xf archive.tar -C /target/directory

To extract and also remove the root(first level) directory in the zip

mkdir -p /target/directory && tar xf archive.tar -C /target/directory --strip-components=1

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How to extract files to another directory using 'tar' command?

3 Answers

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