Right-click on the file, hover over the 7-Zip option, and then select Extract Here. Now, navigate to the folder containing your tar.gz file. Most file extraction applications like 7-Zip or WinZip will get the job done.īegin by downloading and installing 7-Zip on your computer if you don’t already have it. Since Windows doesn’t natively support tar.gz files, you need a third-party tool to open them for you. Some utilities can open TGZ files in one step, others in two. To open such a package, you need to decompress the gzip and extract the resulting tarball.

So, a tar.gz file is a tarball compressed using gzip. In short, Gzip compresses all the individual files and tar packages them in a single archive. Gzip uses the same compression algorithm as the more commonly known zip but can only be used on a single file. gz file extension) is a compressed file format used to archive data to take up smaller space. Indeed, sometimes the resulting tarball can be of greater size due to padding. It is useful to note that tar doesn’t compress the files in question, only packages them.

A tar file (or tarball) contains files in a sequential format, along with metadata about the directory structure and other technical parameters. It’s an old utility, invented mainly for accurate data transfer to devices without their own file systems. The first is tar, short for tape archive. Introduction to the TAR.GZ File Format #Ī TAR.GZ file is a combination of two different packaging algorithms. Popular with Linux users, the TAR.GZ format (TGZ) is often used to package collections of files into a single downloadable.īut the question is, how exactly do you open TGZ files? Do you need any special software? Or are existing tools on your PC enough? Let’s find out. If you are into coding or just downloading a package from Github, you may come across the TAR.GZ file extension.

How do you open a zip file on a mac