Where .zip files consist of many individually compressed files, .tar files are compressed as a single package, leaving its files uncompressed. In other words, .zip files are a collection of compressed files, while .tar files are a compressed collection of files. WinRAR is a popular file compression & archive utility software.

This format involves multiple files bundled into a single archive and compressed using gzip compression. While every tar.gz file is a .tar archive, not every .gz is a .tar file. The .gz extension represents the gzip compression format, which can be applied to almost any file format to compress data and save space. As we’ll see later, different compression utilities may require different methods for extracting and unzipping files. Though we’ll mostly focus on .tar.gz files, check out the end of the article for some quick tips on extracting .tar files in other formats.

Usually, tar files are more common with Ubuntu (other Linux distros) and macOS users for data archival and backups. However, Windows 10 users may also come across these files, which is a reason to have a way to extract their contents. This command will extract (-x) the file (-f) specified (in this case, filename.tar.gz) to the current directory.

1. Let’s explore the extraction process for both Linux & Windows platforms.
2. Usually, tar files are more common with Ubuntu (other Linux distros) and macOS users for data archival and backups.
3. Choose Extract Here to extract the file to your current location.

Linux, of course, can open these files natively, while most Mac and Windows computers have software like the Unarchiver or 7-Zip installed on them. It is useful to note that tar doesn’t compress the files in question, how to buy altcoins on binance only packages them. Indeed, sometimes the resulting tarball can be of greater size due to padding. If you are into coding or just downloading a package from Github, you may come across the TAR.GZ file extension.

But it does not compress the data, which results in a larger file size compared to compressed formats. Since Windows doesn’t natively support tar.gz files, you need a third-party tool to open them for you. Most file extraction applications like 7-Zip or WinZip will get the job done. The size of the files is increasing day by day owing to high quality in everything related to video, audio, document, software, etc.

tar: Archive is compressed. Use -z option

This guide will teach you the steps to use native tar commands on Windows 10 from Command Prompt and Ubuntu to extract the content of a .tar.gz file. A user-friendly way to extract files from a .tar.gz archive is via a Graphical User Interface (GUI). A GUI is more suitable for beginners than a command-line tool. You can open most .tar.gz files using the tar command built in to Linux, macOS, and Windows 10. If you’re not comfortable with the terminal or command line, third-party tools such as 7-Zip offer a more user-friendly alternative.

He has also been a Windows Central contributor for nearly a decade. Mauro has over 14 years of experience writing comprehensive guides and creating professional videos about Windows and software, including Android and Linux. Before becoming a technology writer, he was an IT administrator for seven years.

In other words, .zip is a collection of compressed files, while .tar.gz is a compressed collection of files. The command bundles multiple files and directories into a single file archive but doesn’t compress data on its own. Therefore, it is often used with compression tools, such as gzip (tar.gz files) or bzip2 (tar.bz2 files), to reduce the overall archive size. A .tar.gz file, also known as a tarball, is a compressed archive used in UNIX and Linux systems.

You may also be interested in learning about the best WinZip alternatives to compress files. That means users can download and use it for free during a trial period. It just bundles files & directories together while preserving their file structure and metadata.

How to Open Tar.gz File in Windows 10

For such scenarios, third-party software like Aryson Archive Recovery software is used. The FileInfo.com team has independently researched the Compressed Tarball file format and Mac, Windows, Linux, and Android apps listed on this page. Our goal is 100% accuracy and we only publish information about file types that we have verified.

Gzip (denoted by a .gz file extension) is a compressed file format used to archive data to take up smaller space. Gzip uses the same compression algorithm as the more commonly known zip but can only be used on a single file. In short, Gzip compresses all the individual files and tar packages them in a single archive. Though both .zip and .tar.gz archive and compress files, they do so in different ways.

TAR stands for tarball which contains several files enclosed in a single file. This will further help in keeping track of all the files as it contains all in one. TAR files are usually used in Linux and Unix Operating Systems.

You can just as easily unzip the resulting .tar.gz file with the decompress (-d) option. When the archive is extracted, these attributes are restored. This format is common in the Unix/Linux world and is widely used to create compressed archives. In most platforms, the chances are that you already possess the right application to extract and open TGZ files.

.tar vs .tar.gz Files

In this guide, you will learn how to extract or unzip .tar.gz files in Linux. In this example, the user tried to extract the file titled “FILE” from filename.tar.gz. However, tar was unable to find FILE within .tar.gz, meaning that the user either misspelled the name or that the file simply doesn’t exist in filename.tar.gz. Another common cause of errors is case sensitivity, where Linux treats “FILE” and “file” as two separate entities. If you want to keep the original file after compression, there are two options.

How to Extract .tar.gz File in Windows

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Gzip compression uses a checksum to make sure data integrity. When you extract files from a .tar.gz archive, the checksum is automatically verified to detect & handle any potential data corruption. A file using .tar.gz format is a file that has been created using the Unix-based archival application tar and then compressed programmer’s life using the gzip compression. These files are often referred to as “tarballs.” While you can find them with a double extension (.tar.gz), the extension can also be shortened to .tgz or .gz. Since .tar.gz compresses multiple files all at once, it can take advantage of similarities between individual files to save on space.