ark - Man Page
KDE archiving tool
Examples (TL;DR)
- Extract a specific archive into the current directory:
ark [-b|--batch] path/to/archive - Extract an archive into a specific directory:
ark [-b|--batch] [-o|--destination] path/to/directory path/to/archive - Create an archive if it does not exist and add specific files to it:
ark [-t|--add-to] path/to/archive path/to/file1 path/to/file2 ...
Synopsis
ark [-b] [-a] [-e] [-O] [-c] [-f suffix] [-p] [-t file] [-d] [-m] [-o directory] [KDE Frameworks Generic Options] [Qt(TM) Generic Options]
Description
Ark is a program for managing various compressed file formats within KDE. Archives can be viewed, extracted, created and modified with Ark. The program can handle various formats such as tar, gzip, bzip2, zip, rar (when the appropriate libraries or command-line programs are installed).
Operation Modes
Ark can be used either as a stand-alone GUI program as well as a command-line program in order to perform some specific tasks.
If invoked without the -b (--batch) or -c (--add) options, Ark is started as a normal GUI program.
When the -b (--batch) option is used, Ark can be used to extract the contents of one or more files directly from the command-line, without launching its GUI.
When the -c (--add) option is used, Ark prompts for files that should be added to a new archive or to an existing archive.
Options
- -d, --dialog
Show a dialog for specifying the options for a batch or add operation.
- -m, --mimetypes
List supported MIME types.
- -o, --destination directory
Default the extraction directory to directory. If not passed, the current path is used.
Options for adding files
- -c, --add
Query the user for an archive filename and add specified files to it. Quit when finished.
- -t, --add-to filename
Add the specified files to filename. Create archive if it does not exist. Quit when finished.
- -p, --changetofirstpath
Change the current directory to the first entry and add all other entries relative to this one.
- -f, --autofilename suffix
Automatically choose a filename, with the selected suffix (for example rar, tar.gz, zip or any other supported types).
Options for batch extraction
- -b, --batch
Use the batch interface instead of the usual dialog. This option is implied if more than one url is specified.
- -e, --autodestination
The destination argument will be set to the path of the first file supplied.
- -a, --autosubfolder
Archive contents will be read, and if detected to not be a single folder archive, a subfolder by the name of the archive will be created.
- -O, --opendestination
Open the destination folder when the extraction is complete.
See Also
More detailed user documentation is available from help:/ark (either enter this URL into Konqueror, or run khelpcenter help:/ark).
kf6options(7)
qt6options(7)
Examples
ark --batch archive.tar.bz2
Will extract archive.tar.bz2 into the current directory without showing any GUI.
ark -b -d archive.tar.bz2 archive2.zip
Will first show an extraction options dialog and then extract both archive.tar.bz2 and archive2.zip into the directory chosen in the dialog.
ark --add-to my-archive.zip photo1.jpg text.txt
Will create my-archive.zip if does not exist and then add photo1.jpg and text.txt to it.
Maintainership
Ark is currently maintained by Elvis Angelaccio and Ragnar Thomsen.
Authors
Lauri Watts <lauri@kde.org>
Initial version of Ark man page in 2005.
Raphael Kubo da Costa <rakuco@FreeBSD.org>
Update of Ark man page in 2009.
Ragnar Thomsen <rthomsen6@gmail.com>
Update of Ark man page in 2015 and 2016.