On a Mac computer, you can use Terminal to run the gunzip command, but there are a few things to remember. gz and tar.gz file.īy definition, therefore, you should be able to uncompress or unzip the file, and the command to be used for this purpose is 'gunzip'. Instead, tar.gz file is a compressed file made up by serveral single files. gz file is the outcome of a compressed file made by Gzip utility, which only compresses one file. However, for Mac computer gz or tar.gz file is more popular based on the nature macOS was built on with Unix. For Windows users, we are familiar with ZIP or RAR. Compressing multiple files into a single one has been a major task we do with computers.