Bulk Exported Users File Decompresses to Many Files

Last Updated: Oct 24, 2025

Overview

This article addresses an issue where a downloaded bulk user export file, which has a .gz extension, decompresses into many small files instead of a single data file. This can occur after downloading the user export and attempting to open the .gz archive, which may produce the following error:

Error 79 - Inappropriate File Type or Format when trying to open <file_name>.csv.gz

Image of the error message

Applies To

Bulk User Export

Cause

This issue is caused by using a decompression utility that does not properly support the .gz archive format. A bulk user export from Auth0 is an archive that contains a single data file formatted as either Comma-Separated Values (CSV) or JavaScript Object Notation (JSON).

Solution

To correctly decompress the .gz file and obtain a single data file, use a compatible utility.

macOS / Unix-based Systems: Use the native command-line utilities to decompress the file. Open a terminal or console application and run the following command:
```
gunzip -v <file_name>.csv.gz
```
Windows: Verify that the software used for decompression properly supports the .gz archive format. If the default Windows utility or other software results in multiple files, use an application specifically designed for handling .gz archives.