Open and extract TAR, TAR.GZ and GZ files in your browser

Choose a .tar, .tar.gz, .tgz or .gz file to see what is inside and save individual files. The archive is streamed on your device and is never uploaded.

1. Choose a .tar, .tar.gz, .tgz or .gz file from your device.
2. UnpackNest streams the archive, so even multi-gigabyte files list without loading them into memory at once.
3. Press Extract next to a file to save it. Folders, links and unsafe paths are shown but not written.

TAR, gzip, and why they are not the same thing

TAR is a tape archive: it concatenates files and folders, with their names and permissions, and it does not compress them. Gzip is a separate compression stream that can wrap one TAR (that is a .tar.gz or .tgz) or a single file (a lone .gz). This page understands both shapes. It also understands the TAR dialects you are likely to meet: ustar, PAX (the dialect that stores long names and Unicode names, including Arabic) and GNU TAR. It does not open .tar.xz, .tar.bz2 or .zst. Those need desktop 7-Zip, or tar -xf on macOS and Linux. TAR and gzip have no password field. If the file was encrypted with OpenSSL or GPG, the tool says so and stops. Decrypt it first, then come back.

Reading is streamed on your device. A long TAR does not have a central directory at the end the way ZIP does, so the list is built by walking the archive. That is why the status line talks about streaming, and why a truncated download fails part-way through the list rather than before it. Nothing is uploaded. The privacy policy covers local processing and, separately, Google AdSense, third-party advertising vendors and the DoubleClick cookie.

How to extract on this page

1. Choose a .tar, .tar.gz, .tgz or .gz file. A .tgz is just a gzip-compressed TAR with a shorter name. A .tar.gz that your browser split into "archive.tar" after a first unpack is already a plain TAR; you can still open it here.
2. Wait for the entry list. Multi-gigabyte archives are streamed, so the first names can appear before the end of the file has been read. Let the status line finish before you decide the archive is short.
3. Press Extract next to the file you need. The browser saves that entry. Paths are shown in the name so you can see the folder the sender used.
4. If the tool reports an encrypted stream, do not rename the file to .tar and hope. OpenSSL and GPG encryption are outside this page. The person who sent it should also have sent a decryption step, ideally not in the same breath as a surprise attachment.
5. For xz, bz2 or zstd, stop here and use a desktop tool. Forcing those files through gzip will only produce the "not a gzip stream" class of error.

Failures that look like corruption and are not

• Wrong extension. Downloads from GitHub and Linux packages are often .tar.gz even when a phone labels them .gz or .tar. The extension guide shows the usual pairs: archive file extensions.
• A ZIP or RAR renamed to .tar.gz. The stream check fails immediately. Open the ZIP tool or the RAR tool instead of retrying.
• PAX or GNU names that a very old extractor garbled. This page keeps Unicode names. If another program showed question marks, extract here and compare. Garbled names are an encoding problem, not missing files.
• The list stops early. The download is probably truncated. TAR has no end-of-archive directory that can be recovered from a missing tail. Download the file again and compare sizes.
• You needed one file from a huge tarball. Extract that row only. You do not have to save every entry. See extract one file from an archive.

Where TAR shows up, and where to read next

Source code, Linux packages and many "download the dataset" links are TAR or gzip. Windows users meet them less often than ZIP, which is why a .tar.gz on a new PC feels stuck. macOS and Linux open them in the file manager or with tar -xzf. ChromeOS is pickier: the Files app is happier with ZIP than with a tarball, so this page is often the shortest path. Open archives on a Chromebook and open TAR.GZ on Windows, Mac and a phone go through each system. How to open GZ files separates a single gzip member from a tarball.

Does this page unpack .tar.xz if I rename it?

No. The compression is xz, not gzip. Renaming does not change the bytes. Use 7-Zip or tar -xf on a computer.

Can a TAR contain another archive?

Yes, often a ZIP of documentation or a nested tarball of a submodule. Save the inner file and open it with the matching tool. Archives inside archives is the order of operations, including the safety note about opening unknown nested files.

Are my files used to choose ads?

No. The archive is processed locally. Advertising, when it is on, is described in the privacy policy and does not receive the archive. You can also review Google's own ad settings from the links on that page.