ouch ☆

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Description:
Painless compression and decompression for your terminal

Type: Formula | Tracked Since: Dec 28, 2025

Links: Homepage | formulae.brew.sh

Category: Developer tools

Tags: compression cli archive utilities rust

Install: brew install ouch

About:
Ouch is a command-line interface (CLI) tool designed to unify compression and decompression operations across various file formats. It automatically detects and handles common archive types like .zip, .tar, .gz, .bz, and .xz without requiring users to remember different tool flags. Its primary value is simplifying archive management with intuitive commands and cross-platform support.

Key Features:

Unified CLI for multiple formats (zip, tar, 7z, etc.)
Automatic format detection
Cross-platform support (Linux, macOS, Windows)
User-friendly error messages and defaults

Use Cases:

Compressing or extracting files without switching between tar, gzip, and zip utilities
Batch processing multiple archive formats with a single command
Scripting and automation where consistent archive handling is required

Alternatives:

tar – Standard Unix tool; requires specific flags and doesn't handle zip/7z natively
unzip – Handles zip files only; lacks multi-format support
7z – Powerful but complex CLI with format-specific syntax

Version History

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