BZIP2 (.bz2)
Also known as: .bz2 file, bunzip2, how to open bz2, tar.bz2
BZIP2 is a single-file compressor that produces .bz2 files. It generally achieves a higher compression ratio than gzip but is noticeably slower, and like gzip it pairs with TAR to compress whole folders as tar.bz2.
- Single-file compressor (.bz2)
- Higher ratio than gzip, but slower
- Pairs with TAR as tar.bz2
Higher ratio, slower than gzip
BZIP2 uses the Burrows–Wheeler transform to squeeze files tighter than gzip, which makes it a good fit when storage matters more than speed — long-term backups, large text datasets, or logs you rarely touch.
The trade-off is time and CPU: compressing and decompressing .bz2 is slower than gzip. Like gzip, it handles one file at a time, so a folder is packed as .tar.bz2 (sometimes shortened to .tbz2).
Opening and the storage angle
Extract with `bunzip2 file.bz2` or `tar -xf file.tar.bz2` on Mac/Linux, or 7-Zip/Keka on desktop. As with any compressor, already-compressed media barely shrinks — the wins come from text-like data.
These days xz often beats bzip2 on ratio, so bzip2 mostly persists for compatibility with existing .bz2 archives. Delete the .bz2 once the extracted files are confirmed.