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Need help?Create a TAR Archive Online
This tool packs any files — or a whole folder's worth — into a single .tar archive, the standard bundling format of the Unix and Linux world. One thing to understand before you start: TAR bundles, it does not compress. A tar file concatenates your files with their names, permissions, and directory structure into one stream, byte-for-byte uncompressed — which is exactly why servers, build systems, and backup pipelines like it. If you also want the archive smaller, create a TGZ instead, which is the same TAR run through gzip. Files upload over an encrypted connection, are processed on our servers, and are deleted automatically after a few hours — no sign-up, no watermark.
How to Create a TAR Archive
- Upload Your Files: Drag and drop everything you want bundled onto the page, or click "+ Add Files" to browse. Mixed types are fine — documents, images, code, media.
- Confirm TAR as the Output: The archive format is set to TAR; nested folder structures are preserved inside the archive as-is.
- Archive: Click "Archive" — the files are packed into one
.tarin upload order, uncompressed. - Download: Save the single
.tarfile. Extract it on any Linux/macOS system withtar -xf, or on Windows with 7-Zip, WinRAR, or Windows 11's built-in support.
TAR Format at a Glance
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Full name | Tape Archive — from its 1970s Unix tape-backup origins |
| Compression | None — TAR only bundles; pair with gzip/bzip2/xz for compression |
| Preserves | File names, directory structure, permissions, timestamps |
| Native on | Every Unix/Linux/macOS system; Windows 11 extracts it natively |
| Typical pairings | .tar.gz/.tgz (gzip), .tar.bz2 (bzip2), .tar.xz (xz) |
| Best for | Server uploads, build artifacts, backups, Unix-style delivery |
TAR, TGZ, or ZIP — Which Should You Create?
| You want... | Make | Why |
|---|---|---|
| A bundle a Linux pipeline will consume | TAR (this page) | The native format; no decompression step needed |
| A smaller file for storage or transfer | TGZ | Same TAR, gzip-compressed — the Unix default |
| Something anyone on any OS opens by double-click | ZIP | Native on Windows and macOS with zero extra software |
| The smallest archive of compressible files | 7Z | LZMA2 compresses tightest, at slower speed |
Common Problems and Quick Fixes
- "The archive is bigger than my files" — by a little, yes: TAR adds a header block per file, noticeable only with thousands of tiny files. It never compresses, so the total tracks your inputs.
- "Windows shows one file inside another archive" — you may be looking at a
.tar.gzfrom elsewhere: the gzip layer opens first, revealing the TAR inside. Files from this page are plain TAR, one layer only. - "Extraction scrambled my filenames" — non-ASCII names depend on the extracting tool's encoding; current
tar, 7-Zip, and Windows 11 handle UTF-8 names correctly, older utilities may not.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is my TAR the same size as the files I put in?
Because that's what TAR is — a bundler, not a compressor. The format concatenates your files with headers describing names and structure, adding a little overhead and removing nothing. If you expected a smaller file, you want TGZ, which gzips the bundle in the same pass; on typical documents and code that cuts the size substantially, though already-compressed media (JPG, MP4, ZIP) barely shrinks no matter what wraps it.
Do folders and their structure survive inside the TAR?
Yes — directory structure is the thing TAR is best at. The paths you upload are stored in the archive and recreated exactly on extraction, which is why deployment and backup scripts trust it. Unix permissions and timestamps ride along in the headers too, so a bundle extracted on a Linux host comes out ready to use.
How do I open a TAR file after downloading it?
On Linux and macOS, tar -xf archive.tar in a terminal, or double-click in most file managers. On Windows, 7-Zip and WinRAR have opened TAR for decades, and Windows 11 extracts it natively in File Explorer. Nothing about the format is exotic — it's one of the oldest archive formats still in daily use.
Is there a size limit on what I can bundle?
Free uploads are limited to 400 MB per file (paid plans raise the cap); the packing happens on our servers. Because TAR doesn't compress, budget the download at roughly the sum of your input files. For very large media sets, consider whether a compressed format saves you the transfer time.
Why do Linux tools prefer TAR over ZIP?
Two reasons: TAR stores Unix ownership and permission bits that ZIP handles poorly, and it separates bundling from compression, so the same archive can be gzipped, bzipped, or xz-compressed as needs change. ZIP compresses each file independently — convenient for pulling out one file, worse for overall ratio, and historically lossy about Unix metadata.
Can I make a .tar.gz here instead?
Yes — that's the TGZ archiver, which produces the gzip-compressed variant (.tgz and .tar.gz are the same thing under two names). Make plain TAR when a pipeline expects uncompressed input or when the contents are already compressed; make TGZ when the archive travels over a network or sits in storage.
Does the TAR store my files' permissions correctly if I upload from Windows?
The archive format has fields for Unix permissions, but files uploaded from a Windows machine don't carry meaningful Unix permission bits to begin with — extraction on Linux will apply default modes. When exact permissions matter (deployment scripts, executables), set them on the Linux side after extraction with chmod, or create the archive on a Unix host where the bits exist to preserve.
How are my files handled?
Files are uploaded over an encrypted connection, packed on our servers, and deleted automatically a few hours after archiving — never shared or made public, no sign-up, no watermark. In our testing, bundling a folder of mixed documents produced a .tar within a fraction of a percent of the inputs' combined size — exactly what an uncompressed bundler should do.