vtar.sh

#!/bin/bash
#
# vtar - "visual tar with a progress bar"
# by Peter Ljunglöf, 2019
# inspired by: http://www.campisano.org/wiki/en/Script_bkp.sh

show_usage() {
    echo
    echo "Visual tar with a progress bar. Usage:"
    echo
    echo "Archiving:"
    echo "  "`basename $0`" -zcf <FILE.tgz> <DIRECTORY>"
    echo "  "`basename $0`"  -cf <FILE.tar> <DIRECTORY>"
    echo "Dearchiving:"
    echo "  "`basename $0`" -zxf <FILE.tgz>"
    echo "  "`basename $0`"  -xf <FILE.tar>"
}

######################################################################
# settings, change if you want

TAR=gtar # change this to "tar" or "gnutar" or whatever you like
WIDTH=60 # width of the progress bar (in characters)

######################################################################
# here's the main code

if [[ ! "$1" =~ ^-z?[xc]f$ ]]; then
    echo "Error: Wrong option: $1" >&2
    show_usage >&2
    exit 1
fi

# get the last argument, which should be a file/directory
for file; do true; done

if [ ! -f $file ] && [ ! -d $file ]; then
    echo "Error: File/directory does not exist: $file" >&2
    show_usage >&2
    exit 1
fi

echo "Visual tar with a progress bar, calculating size... "

sizeKB=`du -sk ${file} | cut -f 1`
sizeMB=`echo ${sizeKB}/1024 | bc`
checkpoint=`echo ${sizeKB}/${WIDTH} | bc`

echo -n "Estimated: ["
for ((i=0; i<$WIDTH; i++)); do echo -n "="; done
if [ $sizeMB -ge 5 ]
then echo "] ${sizeMB}M"
else echo "] ${sizeKB}K"
fi

echo -n "Progress:  ["
$TAR --record-size=1K --checkpoint="${checkpoint}" --checkpoint-action="ttyout=>" "$@"
echo "]"

Should work on Linux and Mac.

If you're using Mac, you must install GNU tar, e.g., via Homebrew: brew install gnu-tar