How do I gunzip all files recursively in a target directory?

I'd like to know what is the command to use to gunzip all files in a target directory recursively? I tried to use the unzip command but it didn't work.

I tried the command from Unzip all zip files in a target folder?

2 Answers

gunzip has -r option. From man gunzip :

 -r --recursive Travel the directory structure recursively. If any of the
file names specified on the command line are directories, gzip
will descend into the directory and compress all the files it finds
there (or decompress them in the case of gunzip ).

So, if you want to gunzip all compressed files (gunzip can currently decompress files created by gzip, zip, compress, compress -H or pack) inside the directory /foo/bar and all its subdirectories :

gunzip -r /foo/bar

This will handle file names with spaces too.

Using the commands below. Replace <path_of_your_zips> with the path to your ZIP files and <out> with your destination folder:

• For GZ files

  find <path_of_your_zips> -type f -name "*.gz" -exec tar xf {} -C <out> \;

  or

  find <path_of_your_zips> -type f -name "*.gz" -print0 | xargs -0 -I{} tar xf {} -C <out>

• For ZIP files

  find <path_of_your_zips> -type f -name "*.zip" -exec unzip {} -d <out> \;

  or

  find <path_of_your_zips> -type f -name "*.zip" -print0 | xargs -0 -I{} unzip {} -d <out>