ZIP to TAR.GZ

Convert ZIP to TAR.GZ online: re-pack ZIP archives as gzipped tarballs (.tar.gz) for Linux servers and deployments. Free, private, no upload.

Files are processed in your browser and never uploaded.

How to convert ZIP to TAR.GZ

  1. Click Choose a file and select the .zip, or drag it onto the drop zone.
  2. If the ZIP asks for a password when you open it, enter that password in Password (only if the archive is encrypted). Otherwise leave the field empty.
  3. Click Convert to TAR.GZ. The files are unzipped, bundled into a tarball and compressed with gzip.
  4. Hit Download. The output is named after the input, so my-app.zip becomes my-app.tar.gz.

Everything happens in your browser: zip.js decompresses the ZIP and libarchive (WebAssembly) writes the gzip tarball. The ZIP is never uploaded, which is useful when it contains credentials, configuration or customer data.

Why Linux and servers prefer TAR.GZ

On Linux and other Unix-like systems, the gzip-compressed tarball is the everyday archive format. Every server has tar and gzip installed, even minimal containers where unzip is often missing. Deployment scripts, package build tools, configuration management and many hosting control panels expect a .tar.gz. Source code releases on project websites are typically published in this format as well.

Converting here saves a round trip: instead of uploading a ZIP to a server and then installing unzip, you upload a TAR.GZ and unpack it with tar -xzf my-app.tar.gz. To check what is inside without unpacking, use tar -tzf my-app.tar.gz.

What the tarball contains

Because the source is a ZIP, the conversion has full information about each file. The tarball keeps:

  • Modification dates exactly as recorded in the ZIP, so tools such as make or rsync that compare timestamps see the original times.
  • Folder structure and Unix-style paths, written as POSIX (pax) tar so that long paths and non-English file names stay intact.
  • File contents byte for byte.

Things that are dropped: empty folders, macOS junk entries (__MACOSX/ folders and ._ files) and any ZIP password. Unix permissions are not taken from the ZIP, so shell scripts will need chmod +x after unpacking. In terms of size, a TAR.GZ is usually similar to or slightly smaller than the original ZIP, because gzip compresses the whole tarball as one stream and can exploit similarities between files.

Tips

  • If you need a smaller file and your target system has xz, convert to TAR.XZ with the Archive Converter; dates are kept for ZIP sources there too.
  • Creating a tarball directly from folders on your computer is easier with Create TAR.GZ.
  • Received a TAR.GZ and need a ZIP for Windows colleagues? Use TAR.GZ to ZIP.
  • Tidy the ZIP first, removing or renaming entries, with Edit ZIP.
Tip: Many projects expect a tarball to contain one top-level folder. If your ZIP has loose files at the root, use Edit ZIP to move them into a folder before converting.

Frequently asked questions

Is TAR.GZ the same as TGZ?

Yes, .tgz is a shorter name for the same format. You can rename the downloaded file if a tool expects that extension.

Can I convert a password-protected ZIP to TAR.GZ?

Yes. Enter the password and the files are decrypted locally. TAR.GZ has no encryption, so the result is unprotected.

Will Windows open the TAR.GZ?

Recent Windows 11 updates can, and so can 7-Zip. Windows 10 users can run tar -xzf in a terminal or use a ZIP instead.

How big can the ZIP be?

The conversion runs in browser memory. Up to about 700 MB is comfortable, larger files are slower, and inputs over 2 GB are refused.

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