How to compress and decompress files in Linux with ZIP

To compress a directory in Linux you can use the zip command:

zip -r output_file.zip folder

You can compress multiple directories too by adding the folders' names :

zip -r output_file.zip folder1 folder2 folder3

To decompress the zipped file, use the command unzip:

unzip file.zip 

To decompress the zipped file in different directory, use the option -d:

unzip file.zip -d /home/debian/destination

To overwrite existing files without prompting, use the command -o:

unzip file.zip -o