zless

zless [file ...]

zless is part of the gzip package. It works by setting `LESSOPEN` to pipe files through `gzip -cdfq` before passing them to less. This handles gzip (.gz) compressed files, as well as uncompressed files (gzip passes them through unchanged).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.For broader format support (bzip2, xz, zstd, etc.), use less with lesspipe configured as the `LESSOPEN` preprocessor instead.

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 is a gzip-specific tool and does not natively support bzip2, xz, lzma, or other formats. For those, use less with lesspipe or pipe via the appropriate decompressor (e.g. `xz -dc file.xz | less`). For tar.gz archives, zless will only decompress the gzip layer and display the raw tar data; use tar -tzf to list contents instead. zless cannot read compressed data from standard input; files must be given as arguments.

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)