Unzip file contents, but without creating archive folder

I have a file myarchive.zip that contains many directories, files, etc. Let's say this myarchive.zip file lives in a directory called "b". Well, when I use the "unzip myarchive.zip" command, the system creates a directory by default called "myarchive" with the contents of the zip file. I do not want the system to create this "myarchive" directory - I just want the contents to be extracted to directory "b". Is this possible?

What I've been doing now is simply issuing a "cp" command to copy the files from the newly created directory (in this case "myarchive" to "b") to where I want them.

edited Jun 12 '13 at 11:06

Anthon

60.9k17103166

asked Apr 18 '13 at 2:09

ScoobaSteve

161124

8

By default, unzip doesn't create a directory. Your zip file probably has the directory at its top level.

– Chris Down
Apr 18 '13 at 3:29

3

You could use mv instead of cp. mv archive/* .; rmdir archive/ or similar.

– frostschutz
Apr 18 '13 at 3:35

add a comment |

What I've been doing now is simply issuing a "cp" command to copy the files from the newly created directory (in this case "myarchive" to "b") to where I want them.

edited Jun 12 '13 at 11:06

Anthon

60.9k17103166

asked Apr 18 '13 at 2:09

ScoobaSteve

161124

8

By default, unzip doesn't create a directory. Your zip file probably has the directory at its top level.

– Chris Down
Apr 18 '13 at 3:29

3

You could use mv instead of cp. mv archive/* .; rmdir archive/ or similar.

– frostschutz
Apr 18 '13 at 3:35

add a comment |

What I've been doing now is simply issuing a "cp" command to copy the files from the newly created directory (in this case "myarchive" to "b") to where I want them.

edited Jun 12 '13 at 11:06

Anthon

60.9k17103166

asked Apr 18 '13 at 2:09

ScoobaSteve

161124

What I've been doing now is simply issuing a "cp" command to copy the files from the newly created directory (in this case "myarchive" to "b") to where I want them.

cp zip

edited Jun 12 '13 at 11:06

Anthon

60.9k17103166

asked Apr 18 '13 at 2:09

ScoobaSteve

161124

edited Jun 12 '13 at 11:06

Anthon

60.9k17103166

asked Apr 18 '13 at 2:09

ScoobaSteve

161124

edited Jun 12 '13 at 11:06

Anthon

60.9k17103166

edited Jun 12 '13 at 11:06

Anthon

60.9k17103166

edited Jun 12 '13 at 11:06

Anthon

60.9k17103166

asked Apr 18 '13 at 2:09

ScoobaSteve

161124

asked Apr 18 '13 at 2:09

ScoobaSteve

161124

asked Apr 18 '13 at 2:09

ScoobaSteve

161124

8

By default, unzip doesn't create a directory. Your zip file probably has the directory at its top level.

– Chris Down
Apr 18 '13 at 3:29

3

You could use mv instead of cp. mv archive/* .; rmdir archive/ or similar.

– frostschutz
Apr 18 '13 at 3:35

add a comment |

8

By default, unzip doesn't create a directory. Your zip file probably has the directory at its top level.

– Chris Down
Apr 18 '13 at 3:29

3

You could use mv instead of cp. mv archive/* .; rmdir archive/ or similar.

– frostschutz
Apr 18 '13 at 3:35

By default, unzip doesn't create a directory. Your zip file probably has the directory at its top level.

– Chris Down
Apr 18 '13 at 3:29

You could use mv instead of cp. mv archive/* .; rmdir archive/ or similar.

– frostschutz
Apr 18 '13 at 3:35

add a comment |

4 Answers
4

active

oldest

votes

My version of unzip has a -j option to not create any directory.

unzip -j /path/to/file.zip

Will extract all the files into the current directory without restoring the directory structure stored in the zip file.

If you want to only remove one level of directories from the archive, (extract myarchive/dir/file as dir/file, not file), you could use bsdtar (which does supports zip files in addition to tar files) instead and its -s option.

bsdtar -xf /path/to/file.zip -s'|[^/]*/||'

edited Feb 4 '16 at 16:37

answered Apr 18 '13 at 10:29

Stéphane Chazelas

306k57580935

7

When using -j the archive directory structure is not recreated and all files are deposited in the extraction folder. This means ALL subfolders are dropped. So if you would have zip/A/f1, zip/A/B/f2 and zip/A/B/C/f3 you would end up with a single folder with f1, f2, f3. It gets funky if you have files with the same name in different subfolders. Usually you want to just drop the top folder not the entire directory structure.

– Cristian Vrabie
Feb 4 '16 at 16:01

3

@CristianVrabie, well that's exactly what I'm saying in the answer. I've added a bsdtar alternative for what you're asking. See edit.

– Stéphane Chazelas
Feb 4 '16 at 16:38

add a comment |

Looks like this is really simple with bsdtar :

bsdtar --strip-components=1 -xvf file.zip

answered Jan 31 at 10:38

ismail

27026

add a comment |

-1

If performing unzip myarchive.zip produces a directory myarchive with everything in it, then that means the creator of the zip file actually performed zip on that directory.

The only way to create what you want is to just move all the contents outside the directory after you perform unzip:

[user@host]:some/path/b$ unzip myarchive.zip

[user@host]:some/path/b$ ls shows directory myarchive

[user@host]:some/path/b$ mv myarchive/* .

[user@host]:some/path/b$ rm -R myarchive

[user@host]:some/path/b$ ls shows first level of myarchive (directly in b)

answered Jul 19 '17 at 17:53

toinetoine

1011

1

you also need a mv myarchive/.* . to move all the hidden files like .gitignore and .htaccess.

– Kinjal Dixit
Sep 5 '17 at 6:34

1

@KinjalDixit That was my thinking too; Antoine there's a fatal flaw in your example as Kinjai points out: because you use rm -R and because you're not using ls -a you're not showing if there are any dot files; now what happens when you run rm -R and there are dot files? You've not copied them so they're lost. You really should fix that and maybe explain the difference because it's something that will trip up newbies quite a lot; and consider this: what if it's not an archive they have? Or what if they add to the command to delete the archive once it's uncompressed?

– Pryftan
May 9 '18 at 20:22

Otoh rmdir would make sure it's empty first... But if the user doesn't know about dot files it'd confuse them.

– Pryftan
May 9 '18 at 20:23

add a comment |

-1

What the accepted answer doesn't specify how to do, as you say in the question, if you still want to extract to a specific folder without using the folders paths stored in the zip files, you can use the -j option with -d option in this way:

unzip -j /path/to/file.zip -d other_folder

or for your case

unzip -j myarchive.zip -d b

answered Mar 19 '18 at 21:57

Eduard Florinescu

3,384103855

You're right that you can do that; but it won't create the subdirectories so you still have to incorporate another step; I'm pretty sure the OP wants to rename the root directory of the archive to another name but keep the remaining structure under that directory.

– Pryftan
May 9 '18 at 20:34

add a comment |

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4 Answers
4

active

oldest

votes

4 Answers
4

active

oldest

votes

My version of unzip has a -j option to not create any directory.

unzip -j /path/to/file.zip

Will extract all the files into the current directory without restoring the directory structure stored in the zip file.

bsdtar -xf /path/to/file.zip -s'|[^/]*/||'

edited Feb 4 '16 at 16:37

answered Apr 18 '13 at 10:29

Stéphane Chazelas

306k57580935

7

When using -j the archive directory structure is not recreated and all files are deposited in the extraction folder. This means ALL subfolders are dropped. So if you would have zip/A/f1, zip/A/B/f2 and zip/A/B/C/f3 you would end up with a single folder with f1, f2, f3. It gets funky if you have files with the same name in different subfolders. Usually you want to just drop the top folder not the entire directory structure.

– Cristian Vrabie
Feb 4 '16 at 16:01

3

@CristianVrabie, well that's exactly what I'm saying in the answer. I've added a bsdtar alternative for what you're asking. See edit.

– Stéphane Chazelas
Feb 4 '16 at 16:38

add a comment |

My version of unzip has a -j option to not create any directory.

unzip -j /path/to/file.zip

Will extract all the files into the current directory without restoring the directory structure stored in the zip file.

bsdtar -xf /path/to/file.zip -s'|[^/]*/||'

edited Feb 4 '16 at 16:37

answered Apr 18 '13 at 10:29

Stéphane Chazelas

306k57580935

7

When using -j the archive directory structure is not recreated and all files are deposited in the extraction folder. This means ALL subfolders are dropped. So if you would have zip/A/f1, zip/A/B/f2 and zip/A/B/C/f3 you would end up with a single folder with f1, f2, f3. It gets funky if you have files with the same name in different subfolders. Usually you want to just drop the top folder not the entire directory structure.

– Cristian Vrabie
Feb 4 '16 at 16:01

3

@CristianVrabie, well that's exactly what I'm saying in the answer. I've added a bsdtar alternative for what you're asking. See edit.

– Stéphane Chazelas
Feb 4 '16 at 16:38

add a comment |

My version of unzip has a -j option to not create any directory.

unzip -j /path/to/file.zip

Will extract all the files into the current directory without restoring the directory structure stored in the zip file.

bsdtar -xf /path/to/file.zip -s'|[^/]*/||'

edited Feb 4 '16 at 16:37

answered Apr 18 '13 at 10:29

Stéphane Chazelas

306k57580935

My version of unzip has a -j option to not create any directory.

unzip -j /path/to/file.zip

Will extract all the files into the current directory without restoring the directory structure stored in the zip file.

bsdtar -xf /path/to/file.zip -s'|[^/]*/||'

edited Feb 4 '16 at 16:37

answered Apr 18 '13 at 10:29

Stéphane Chazelas

306k57580935

edited Feb 4 '16 at 16:37

answered Apr 18 '13 at 10:29

Stéphane Chazelas

306k57580935

answered Apr 18 '13 at 10:29

Stéphane Chazelas

306k57580935

answered Apr 18 '13 at 10:29

Stéphane Chazelas

306k57580935

7

When using -j the archive directory structure is not recreated and all files are deposited in the extraction folder. This means ALL subfolders are dropped. So if you would have zip/A/f1, zip/A/B/f2 and zip/A/B/C/f3 you would end up with a single folder with f1, f2, f3. It gets funky if you have files with the same name in different subfolders. Usually you want to just drop the top folder not the entire directory structure.

– Cristian Vrabie
Feb 4 '16 at 16:01

3

@CristianVrabie, well that's exactly what I'm saying in the answer. I've added a bsdtar alternative for what you're asking. See edit.

– Stéphane Chazelas
Feb 4 '16 at 16:38

add a comment |

7

When using -j the archive directory structure is not recreated and all files are deposited in the extraction folder. This means ALL subfolders are dropped. So if you would have zip/A/f1, zip/A/B/f2 and zip/A/B/C/f3 you would end up with a single folder with f1, f2, f3. It gets funky if you have files with the same name in different subfolders. Usually you want to just drop the top folder not the entire directory structure.

– Cristian Vrabie
Feb 4 '16 at 16:01

3

@CristianVrabie, well that's exactly what I'm saying in the answer. I've added a bsdtar alternative for what you're asking. See edit.

– Stéphane Chazelas
Feb 4 '16 at 16:38

When using -j the archive directory structure is not recreated and all files are deposited in the extraction folder. This means ALL subfolders are dropped. So if you would have zip/A/f1, zip/A/B/f2 and zip/A/B/C/f3 you would end up with a single folder with f1, f2, f3. It gets funky if you have files with the same name in different subfolders. Usually you want to just drop the top folder not the entire directory structure.

– Cristian Vrabie
Feb 4 '16 at 16:01

@CristianVrabie, well that's exactly what I'm saying in the answer. I've added a bsdtar alternative for what you're asking. See edit.

– Stéphane Chazelas
Feb 4 '16 at 16:38

add a comment |

Looks like this is really simple with bsdtar :

bsdtar --strip-components=1 -xvf file.zip

answered Jan 31 at 10:38

ismail

27026

add a comment |

Looks like this is really simple with bsdtar :

bsdtar --strip-components=1 -xvf file.zip

answered Jan 31 at 10:38

ismail

27026

add a comment |

Looks like this is really simple with bsdtar :

bsdtar --strip-components=1 -xvf file.zip

answered Jan 31 at 10:38

ismail

27026

Looks like this is really simple with bsdtar :

bsdtar --strip-components=1 -xvf file.zip

answered Jan 31 at 10:38

ismail

27026

answered Jan 31 at 10:38

ismail

27026

answered Jan 31 at 10:38

ismail

27026

answered Jan 31 at 10:38

ismail

27026

add a comment |

-1

If performing unzip myarchive.zip produces a directory myarchive with everything in it, then that means the creator of the zip file actually performed zip on that directory.

The only way to create what you want is to just move all the contents outside the directory after you perform unzip:

[user@host]:some/path/b$ unzip myarchive.zip

[user@host]:some/path/b$ ls shows directory myarchive

[user@host]:some/path/b$ mv myarchive/* .

[user@host]:some/path/b$ rm -R myarchive

[user@host]:some/path/b$ ls shows first level of myarchive (directly in b)

answered Jul 19 '17 at 17:53

toinetoine

1011

1

you also need a mv myarchive/.* . to move all the hidden files like .gitignore and .htaccess.

– Kinjal Dixit
Sep 5 '17 at 6:34

1

@KinjalDixit That was my thinking too; Antoine there's a fatal flaw in your example as Kinjai points out: because you use rm -R and because you're not using ls -a you're not showing if there are any dot files; now what happens when you run rm -R and there are dot files? You've not copied them so they're lost. You really should fix that and maybe explain the difference because it's something that will trip up newbies quite a lot; and consider this: what if it's not an archive they have? Or what if they add to the command to delete the archive once it's uncompressed?

– Pryftan
May 9 '18 at 20:22

Otoh rmdir would make sure it's empty first... But if the user doesn't know about dot files it'd confuse them.

– Pryftan
May 9 '18 at 20:23

add a comment |

-1

If performing unzip myarchive.zip produces a directory myarchive with everything in it, then that means the creator of the zip file actually performed zip on that directory.

The only way to create what you want is to just move all the contents outside the directory after you perform unzip:

[user@host]:some/path/b$ unzip myarchive.zip

[user@host]:some/path/b$ ls shows directory myarchive

[user@host]:some/path/b$ mv myarchive/* .

[user@host]:some/path/b$ rm -R myarchive

[user@host]:some/path/b$ ls shows first level of myarchive (directly in b)

answered Jul 19 '17 at 17:53

toinetoine

1011

1

you also need a mv myarchive/.* . to move all the hidden files like .gitignore and .htaccess.

– Kinjal Dixit
Sep 5 '17 at 6:34

1

@KinjalDixit That was my thinking too; Antoine there's a fatal flaw in your example as Kinjai points out: because you use rm -R and because you're not using ls -a you're not showing if there are any dot files; now what happens when you run rm -R and there are dot files? You've not copied them so they're lost. You really should fix that and maybe explain the difference because it's something that will trip up newbies quite a lot; and consider this: what if it's not an archive they have? Or what if they add to the command to delete the archive once it's uncompressed?

– Pryftan
May 9 '18 at 20:22

Otoh rmdir would make sure it's empty first... But if the user doesn't know about dot files it'd confuse them.

– Pryftan
May 9 '18 at 20:23

add a comment |

-1

If performing unzip myarchive.zip produces a directory myarchive with everything in it, then that means the creator of the zip file actually performed zip on that directory.

The only way to create what you want is to just move all the contents outside the directory after you perform unzip:

[user@host]:some/path/b$ unzip myarchive.zip

[user@host]:some/path/b$ ls shows directory myarchive

[user@host]:some/path/b$ mv myarchive/* .

[user@host]:some/path/b$ rm -R myarchive

[user@host]:some/path/b$ ls shows first level of myarchive (directly in b)

answered Jul 19 '17 at 17:53

toinetoine

1011

If performing unzip myarchive.zip produces a directory myarchive with everything in it, then that means the creator of the zip file actually performed zip on that directory.

The only way to create what you want is to just move all the contents outside the directory after you perform unzip:

[user@host]:some/path/b$ unzip myarchive.zip

[user@host]:some/path/b$ ls shows directory myarchive

[user@host]:some/path/b$ mv myarchive/* .

[user@host]:some/path/b$ rm -R myarchive

[user@host]:some/path/b$ ls shows first level of myarchive (directly in b)

answered Jul 19 '17 at 17:53

toinetoine

1011

answered Jul 19 '17 at 17:53

toinetoine

1011

answered Jul 19 '17 at 17:53

toinetoine

1011

answered Jul 19 '17 at 17:53

toinetoine

1011

1

you also need a mv myarchive/.* . to move all the hidden files like .gitignore and .htaccess.

– Kinjal Dixit
Sep 5 '17 at 6:34

1

@KinjalDixit That was my thinking too; Antoine there's a fatal flaw in your example as Kinjai points out: because you use rm -R and because you're not using ls -a you're not showing if there are any dot files; now what happens when you run rm -R and there are dot files? You've not copied them so they're lost. You really should fix that and maybe explain the difference because it's something that will trip up newbies quite a lot; and consider this: what if it's not an archive they have? Or what if they add to the command to delete the archive once it's uncompressed?

– Pryftan
May 9 '18 at 20:22

Otoh rmdir would make sure it's empty first... But if the user doesn't know about dot files it'd confuse them.

– Pryftan
May 9 '18 at 20:23

add a comment |

1

you also need a mv myarchive/.* . to move all the hidden files like .gitignore and .htaccess.

– Kinjal Dixit
Sep 5 '17 at 6:34

1

@KinjalDixit That was my thinking too; Antoine there's a fatal flaw in your example as Kinjai points out: because you use rm -R and because you're not using ls -a you're not showing if there are any dot files; now what happens when you run rm -R and there are dot files? You've not copied them so they're lost. You really should fix that and maybe explain the difference because it's something that will trip up newbies quite a lot; and consider this: what if it's not an archive they have? Or what if they add to the command to delete the archive once it's uncompressed?

– Pryftan
May 9 '18 at 20:22

Otoh rmdir would make sure it's empty first... But if the user doesn't know about dot files it'd confuse them.

– Pryftan
May 9 '18 at 20:23

you also need a mv myarchive/.* . to move all the hidden files like .gitignore and .htaccess.

– Kinjal Dixit
Sep 5 '17 at 6:34

@KinjalDixit That was my thinking too; Antoine there's a fatal flaw in your example as Kinjai points out: because you use rm -R and because you're not using ls -a you're not showing if there are any dot files; now what happens when you run rm -R and there are dot files? You've not copied them so they're lost. You really should fix that and maybe explain the difference because it's something that will trip up newbies quite a lot; and consider this: what if it's not an archive they have? Or what if they add to the command to delete the archive once it's uncompressed?

– Pryftan
May 9 '18 at 20:22

Otoh rmdir would make sure it's empty first... But if the user doesn't know about dot files it'd confuse them.

– Pryftan
May 9 '18 at 20:23

add a comment |

-1

unzip -j /path/to/file.zip -d other_folder

or for your case

unzip -j myarchive.zip -d b

answered Mar 19 '18 at 21:57

Eduard Florinescu

3,384103855

You're right that you can do that; but it won't create the subdirectories so you still have to incorporate another step; I'm pretty sure the OP wants to rename the root directory of the archive to another name but keep the remaining structure under that directory.

– Pryftan
May 9 '18 at 20:34

add a comment |

-1

unzip -j /path/to/file.zip -d other_folder

or for your case

unzip -j myarchive.zip -d b

answered Mar 19 '18 at 21:57

Eduard Florinescu

3,384103855

You're right that you can do that; but it won't create the subdirectories so you still have to incorporate another step; I'm pretty sure the OP wants to rename the root directory of the archive to another name but keep the remaining structure under that directory.

– Pryftan
May 9 '18 at 20:34

add a comment |

-1

unzip -j /path/to/file.zip -d other_folder

or for your case

unzip -j myarchive.zip -d b

answered Mar 19 '18 at 21:57

Eduard Florinescu

3,384103855

unzip -j /path/to/file.zip -d other_folder

or for your case

unzip -j myarchive.zip -d b

answered Mar 19 '18 at 21:57

Eduard Florinescu

3,384103855

answered Mar 19 '18 at 21:57

Eduard Florinescu

3,384103855

answered Mar 19 '18 at 21:57

Eduard Florinescu

3,384103855

answered Mar 19 '18 at 21:57

Eduard Florinescu

3,384103855

You're right that you can do that; but it won't create the subdirectories so you still have to incorporate another step; I'm pretty sure the OP wants to rename the root directory of the archive to another name but keep the remaining structure under that directory.

– Pryftan
May 9 '18 at 20:34

add a comment |

You're right that you can do that; but it won't create the subdirectories so you still have to incorporate another step; I'm pretty sure the OP wants to rename the root directory of the archive to another name but keep the remaining structure under that directory.

– Pryftan
May 9 '18 at 20:34

You're right that you can do that; but it won't create the subdirectories so you still have to incorporate another step; I'm pretty sure the OP wants to rename the root directory of the archive to another name but keep the remaining structure under that directory.

– Pryftan
May 9 '18 at 20:34

add a comment |

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