zip & unzip - Zip Archives in Linux

From the Linux Essential Commands cheat sheet · Compression & Archives · verified Jul 2026

zip & unzip - Zip Archives

Create and extract zip archives (cross-platform)

bash
# Create zip
zip archive.zip file1.txt file2.txt

# Zip directory
zip -r archive.zip directory/

# Extract zip
unzip archive.zip

# Extract to directory
unzip archive.zip -d /destination/

# List contents
unzip -l archive.zip
✅ zip format is cross-platform (Windows compatible)
💡 -r zips directories recursively
🔍 unzip -l lists contents without extracting
archivezipcompressioncross-platform

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