engrampa

Start Engrampa

$ engrampa

$ engrampa [path/to/archive1.tar path/to/archive2.tar ...]

$ engrampa --add-to=[path/to/compressed.tar] [path/to/file_or_directory1 path/to/file_or_directory2 ...]

$ engrampa --extract-to=[path/to/directory] [path/to/archive1.tar path/to/archive2.tar ...]

engrampa [OPTIONS...] [ARCHIVE_FILE]

-n, --new
    Create a new archive.

-a, --add=FILES
    Add files to an existing archive. FILES should be a comma-separated list of paths.

-e, --extract
    Extract an archive to the current directory or a default location.

-x, --extract-to=DIRECTORY
    Extract an archive to the specified DIRECTORY.

-d, --delete=FILES
    Delete files from an archive. FILES should be a comma-separated list of paths within the archive.

-t, --test
    Test the integrity of an archive.

-v, --version
    Display the version information of engrampa.

-?, --help
    Show command-line help options.

engrampa is the default graphical archive manager for the MATE desktop environment. It provides a user-friendly interface for creating, viewing, modifying, and extracting various archive formats, including popular ones like .zip, .tar, .gz, .bz2, .7z, and .rar. Users can easily open archives, browse their contents, add or remove files, and extract them to desired locations using a simple drag-and-drop or menu-driven approach.

While primarily a graphical application, engrampa can also be invoked from the command line to open specific archive files or perform basic actions like extraction or creation. Its integration with the MATE desktop ensures a consistent and efficient experience for managing compressed files.

While engrampa offers basic command-line options for automation, its primary strength lies in its graphical user interface. It is not designed as a robust command-line archiving tool like tar or zip and relies on external utilities (such as p7zip, unrar, etc.) for the actual compression/decompression operations. Its availability and optimal functionality are tied to the MATE desktop environment.

engrampa supports a wide array of archive formats, leveraging various backend utilities installed on the system. Common formats include .zip, .tar (and its compressed variants like .tar.gz, .tar.bz2, .tar.xz, .tar.zst), .7z, .rar (read-only without unrar installed), .iso, .arj, .lzh, .rpm, .deb, and many others, providing comprehensive support for most common archive types.

engrampa originated as a fork of File Roller, the default archive manager for the GNOME desktop environment. When GNOME transitioned from version 2 to 3, the MATE desktop was created to continue the traditional GNOME 2 user experience.

As part of this effort, many GNOME 2 applications, including File Roller, were forked and renamed to fit into the MATE ecosystem, thus engrampa was born to serve as MATE's native archive management tool. It maintains a similar look, feel, and feature set to its GNOME 2 predecessor.

file-roller(1), ark(1), tar(1), zip(1), unzip(1), gzip(1), bzip2(1), 7z(1)