# ouch > Command-line utility for compressing and decompressing files and directories. > More information: . - Decompress a specific file: `ouch decompress {{path/to/archive.tar.xz}}` - Decompress a file to a specific location: `ouch decompress {{path/to/archive.tar.xz}} --dir {{path/to/directory}}` - Decompress multiple files: `ouch decompress {{path/to/archive1.tar path/to/archive2.tar.gz ...}}` - Compress files: `ouch compress {{path/to/file1 path/to/file2 ...}} {{path/to/archive.zip}}`