Compression

Use the Compression node to compress and decompress files. Supports Zip, Gzip, Tar, and Tar.gz formats.

Node parameters

This node can be used as an AI tool

This node can be used to enhance the capabilities of an AI agent. When used in this way, many parameters can be set automatically, or with information directed by AI - find out more in the AI tool parameters documentation.

The node parameters depend on which Operation you select. Choose to:

• Compress: Create a compressed file from your input data.

• Decompress: Decompress an existing compressed file.

Refer to the sections below for parameters specific to each Operation.

Compress

• Input Binary Field(s): Enter the name of the fields in the input data that contain the binary files you want to compress. To compress more than one file, use a comma-separated list.

• Output Format: Choose whether to format the compressed output as Zip, Gzip, Tar, or Tar (Gzip).

• File Name: Enter the name of the compressed file the node creates.

• Put Output File in Field: Enter the name of the field in the output data to contain the file.

Decompress

The Decompress operation detects the archive format from the file extension and supports the following formats:

• .zip

• .gz and .gzip

• .tar

• .tar.gz and .tgz

When you decompress a .tar.gz or .tgz archive, the node extracts all member files in a single step. You don't need to decompress the gzip layer separately.

• Input Binary Field(s): Enter the name of the fields in the input data that contain the binary files you want to decompress. To decompress more than one file, use a comma-separated list.

• Output Prefix: Enter a prefix to add to the output file name. The node uses this prefix, followed by an incrementing index, to name each extracted file.

Unsupported formats

If you pass a file with an unsupported extension, the node throws an error instead of silently producing empty output. Supported formats are zip, gzip, tar, tar.gz, and tgz.

Templates and examples

Browse n8n-nodes-base.compression integration templates or search all templates