ZMORE(1) General Commands Manual ZMORE(1)

zmore, zless — view compressed files

zmore [flags] [file ...]

zless [flags] [file ...]

zmore is a filter that allows the viewing of files compressed with Lempel-Ziv encoding. Such files generally have a “Z” or “gz” extension (both the compress(1) and gzip(1) formats are supported). Any flags that are specified are passed to the user's preferred PAGER (which is /usr/bin/more by default).

zless is equivalent to zmore but uses less(1) as a pager instead of more(1).

When multiple files are specified, zmore will pause at the end of each file and present the following prompt to the user:

prev_file (END) - Next: next_file

Where is the file that was just displayed and is the next file to be displayed. The following keys are recognized at the prompt:

or q
quit zmore.
skip the next file (or exit if the next file is the last).

If no files are specified, zmore will read from the standard input. In this mode zmore will assume gzip(1) style compression since there is no suffix on which to make a decision.

Program used to display files. If unset, /usr/bin/more is used (zmore) or /usr/bin/less (zless).

compress(1), less(1), more(1)

October 22, 2014 macOS 15.2