How do I load a sql.gz file to my database? (importing)

zcat /path/to/file.sql.gz | mysql -u 'root' -p your_database

> will write the output of the mysql command on stdout into the file myfile.sql.gz which is most probably not what you want. Additionally, this command will prompt you for the password of the MySQL user "root".

To display a progress bar while importing a sql.gz file, download pv and use the following:

pv mydump.sql.gz | gunzip | mysql -u root -p <database name>

In CentOS/RHEL, you can install pv with yum install pv.

In Debian/Ubuntu apt-get install pv.

In MAC, brew install pv

The simplest way is to unzip the database file before importing. Also as mentioned by @Prof. Moriarty you shouldn't be specifying the password in the command (you'll be asked for the password). This command taken from webcheatsheet will unzip and import the database in one go:

gunzip < myfile.sql.gz | mysql -u root -p mydb

If you get an error from zcat, in which the error message contains the file name with an extra suffix .Z, then try using gzcat instead, as described at https://stackoverflow.com/questions/296717/zcat-wont-unzip-files-properly