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Extract TAR.GZ

Open a .tar.gz, .tgz or .tar archive and download what is inside — in your browser, with nothing uploaded.

Extract ZIP & RAR Archives

Select a .zip or .rar file to instantly extract its contents inside your browser. No files are uploaded to any server.

Two formats stacked on top of each other

The double extension is not a mistake. tar bundles files together and compresses nothing: it writes a small header in front of each file and pads everything to a 512-byte boundary, a layout designed for writing to magnetic tape and never really changed since. gzip then compresses that whole bundle as a single stream.

That order has one consequence you notice immediately. Because gzip compresses the bundle rather than each file in it, there is no index: nothing in a .tar.gz says what is inside until the whole thing has been decompressed. A ZIP keeps a directory at the end of the file, which is why a ZIP tool lists contents instantly and this one has to think first.

Why that also makes the safety limits harder

A ZIP announces each file's uncompressed size up front, so an archive claiming to expand to fifty gigabytes can be refused before a single byte is allocated. A .tar.gz makes no such claim, so the usual approach — decompress, then check — has already lost by the time it finds out.

Here the compressed data is fed to the decompressor in slices and the output measured between them, so extraction stops the moment it passes the cap. A crafted kilobyte that expands to gigabytes gets a clear message instead of an unresponsive tab.

What a browser cannot give back

Regular files come out intact, with their folder structure shown. Symbolic links, device nodes and Unix permission bits do not, because no web page can create them — they are dropped rather than turned into misleading empty files. For restoring a server backup faithfully, use tar on the machine it belongs to; for getting the documents out of one, this is enough.

Extract TAR.GZ FAQ

Is my archive uploaded anywhere?

No. The gzip layer is inflated and the tar inside it is read by code running in your own browser, in a background thread. The archive never leaves your device, which matters for the sort of thing that usually arrives as a .tar.gz — a database dump, a log bundle, a server backup.

What is the difference between .tar.gz, .tgz and .tar?

A .tar is a bundle of files with no compression at all — it just concatenates them with a small header before each. A .tar.gz is that bundle run through gzip afterwards, which is why the two extensions stack up. A .tgz is the same thing with a shorter name, from when filenames could not have two dots. All three open here, and the file's own contents decide which it is rather than what it is called.

Why can I not see the file sizes before extracting?

Because tar.gz genuinely does not know them. A ZIP keeps an index at the end listing every file and its size, which is how a ZIP tool can show you the contents instantly. A .tar.gz is one continuous compressed stream with the headers buried inside it, so the only way to list it is to decompress it. That is also why a large one takes a moment before anything appears.

What happens with a huge or malicious archive?

It is refused with a message rather than freezing the tab. The same caps that protect ZIP extraction apply here, plus one specific to this format: because a .tar.gz declares nothing about its size, the decompression is fed in slices and stopped the moment the output passes the limit. A kilobyte that would expand to gigabytes never gets the chance.

Are symlinks and file permissions preserved?

No. A browser has no way to create a symbolic link or set a Unix permission bit, so links, devices and permissions are dropped and only regular files are handed back. If you need a faithful restore of a backup, extract it with tar on the machine it is going to.