zless

View a gzip compressed file

$ zless [file.gz]

$ zless [file.bz2]

$ zless [file.xz]

$ zless [file.gz]

$ zless [file1.gz] [file2.gz]

zless [file ...]

zless is a filter that allows viewing of compressed files using the less pager. It automatically detects and handles various compression formats including gzip (.gz), bzip2 (.bz2), xz (.xz), and lzma (.lzma).
The command provides the same interactive viewing experience as less, including forward and backward navigation, searching, and line jumping. Files are decompressed on the fly without creating temporary files.
zless can also handle uncompressed files, making it a versatile choice for viewing files regardless of their compression state.

All parameters and commands available in less are also available in zless, including:
Space

Scroll forward one screen.

Scroll backward one screen.

Search forward for pattern.

Search backward for pattern.

Repeat previous search.

Repeat previous search in reverse direction.

Go to first line.

Go to last line.

Quit.

Display help.

zless cannot handle tarred files (tar.gz) - it will only decompress the gzip layer, not extract the tar archive. For tar archives, use tar -tzf to list or tar -xzf to extract. Performance may be slower than less for very large compressed files.

zless is part of the gzip package and was created as a companion to the zcat and zmore utilities. It combines the decompression capabilities of gzip with the advanced paging features of less, which became the preferred pager over more due to its ability to scroll backward and search. The command is included in most Unix-like systems as part of the standard gzip distribution.

less(1), zcat(1), zmore(1), zgrep(1), gzip(1)