Is there a way to extract tar file when there is no space for both .tar and the extracted files at the same time?

Question

I have a 100Gb disk which is filled up by .tar.bz2 files that weigh 60Gb. I want to extract the contents of the file but there is no space for the .tar.bz2 file and its content at the same time.

Is there a way to do this?

Answer 1

Use selective extract and selective delete.

$ tar xvf files.tar files/test.txt files/test.txt

$ tar --delete --file=files.tar files/test.txt

Given your space, splitting the extraction process into 4 should do.

The condition for this to work is that the archive is not solid.