How to open compressed file in less mode

Question

How do I open a compressed file in less mode. I am able to grep using zgrep and using zcatI can open, but the file is big I want to open in less mode.

You didn't specify the type of compression - zgrep for example doesn't work with zstd compress (ok that one wasn't around when you wrote the question). So this quesiton is only valid for gzip style compression. — Cornelius Roemer, Aug 28 '22 at 20:10

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 30 '15 at 09:29

3

Use zless utility from that same gzip suite, it combines functionality of gzip -d and less into one

answered Jun 30 '15 at 09:29

Aleksey Dashevsky

31

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 30 '15 at 08:58

2

This is what pipes were made for:

 gzip -dc | less

answered Jun 30 '15 at 08:58

Jenny D

13,172

How to open compressed file in less mode

2 Answers2