diff --git a/.local/bin/extract b/.local/bin/extract
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..231bc875
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.local/bin/extract
@@ -0,0 +1,33 @@
+#!/bin/bash
+
+if [ $# -lt 1 ];then
+  echo "Usage: `basename $0` FILES"
+  exit 1
+fi
+
+# I found the following function at https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/168/37944
+# which I improved it a little. Many thanks to sydo for this idea.
+extract () {
+    for arg in $@ ; do
+        if [ -f $arg ] ; then
+            case $arg in
+                *.tar.bz2)  tar xjf $arg      ;;
+                *.tar.gz)   tar xzf $arg      ;;
+                *.bz2)      bunzip2 $arg      ;;
+                *.gz)       gunzip $arg       ;;
+                *.tar)      tar xf $arg       ;;
+                *.tbz2)     tar xjf $arg      ;;
+                *.tgz)      tar xzf $arg      ;;
+                *.zip)      unzip $arg        ;;
+                *.Z)        uncompress $arg   ;;
+                *.rar)      rar x $arg        ;;  # 'rar' must to be installed
+                *.jar)      jar -xvf $arg     ;;  # 'jdk' must to be installed
+                *)          echo "'$arg' cannot be extracted via extract()" ;;
+            esac
+        else
+            echo "'$arg' is not a valid file"
+        fi
+    done
+}
+
+extract $@