Normal gz file not extractable by tar I have a gz archive but for some reason `tar` said that the format is incorrect even though I can double click it in mac Finder and extract it normally, and `file` command shows the same format just like any other tar.gz files Why is that and how to extract it from the terminal? $ file archive.gz archive.gz: gzip compressed data, original size modulo 2^32 4327594 $ tar -xzf archive.gz tar: Error opening archive: Unrecognized archive format $ tar --version bsdtar 3.5.1 - libarchive 3.5.1 zlib/1.2.11 liblzma/5.0.5 bz2lib/1.0.8

Your compressed file is probably not a Tar archive.

You can find out the uncompressed filename with `gunzip -l archive.gz` \- that might give you a clue as to the format.

If that doesn't work, then `gunzip` it, and use `file` on the uncompressed output.