Not enough disk space to unzip 50 GB file on Ubuntu 16.04: Can I extract and reduce zip file size at the same time?

Question

I have a 50 GB zip file, which contains roughly 50.000 jpg images. The jpgs are, unzipped, around 55 GB. I am on Ubuntu 16.04.

But I only have 70 GB disk size on that system. So I get a disk error in the middle of the unzipping.

Can I unzip the file, and at the same time reduce the zip file size (e.g. delete the data of the jpgs which have already been unzipped), so that all fits on my disk?

--- Same question for Windows exists ---

Someone had the exact same question for Windows: unzip file on small drive

The proposed solutions there do unfortunately not solve the problem for me on Linux (and neither seem to solve the problem well on Windows). So I am keeping this question, in case there is a good solution for Linux. Thanks for the comments.

Solution

You can use GNOME's built-in Archive Manager to open the zip file without extracting. Once you've opened it you can copy ~10-15 GB of files to the folder you want them extracted to, and then delete them from the archive. Rinse and repeat.

There are multiple utilities which have this functionality (Archive-Mounter, archivemount, GVFS, AVFS) but Archive Manager has a very convenient GUI and will probably be the easiest to use.

Alternatively, you could attach an external drive and use it as temporary storage.

Side note: Windows has the ability to mount zip files like this built-in, I'm surprised no one pointed this out in the other thread.

Comments

[tyrex]

@Scott Thanks for the link. My question is exactly the same, except that I am looking at Ubuntu instead of Windows. The answers there don't work for me (and didn't solve the problem for Windows that well either). Should I close this thread and ask a follow-up question there? Or keep this one, since there may be Ubuntu specific solutions that work? Thanks for the feedback.

[Kamil Maciorowski]

Keep this one, unless somebody finds a duplicate with Linux solution. For now keep the question. "Follow-up question there" doesn't fit our Q&A model; you shouldn't ask similar questions neither in comments nor in "answers".

[Scott - Слава Україні]

Just keep this one. Maybe edit it to say that you have looked at the other question and that it doesn’t help you. Sorry for marking your question as a dup without reading it carefully.