TGZ to ZIP Converter

How to Convert TGZ to ZIP Online

1. Upload Your TGZ File: Drag and drop or click "+ Add Files" to select one or more .tgz (or .tar.gz) archives. Batch conversion is supported, so you can queue several archives in one session.
2. Pick a Combine Mode: The default is Single Archive, which merges every uploaded file into one ZIP. Choose Individual Archives to produce a separate ZIP for each TGZ — useful when you want to keep release tarballs as discrete deliverables.
3. Review Advanced Options (Optional): Defaults are tuned for compatibility with Windows Explorer, macOS Archive Utility, and 7-Zip. Leave them as-is unless you have a specific need.
4. Convert and Download: Click Convert. Files are uploaded over an encrypted connection, processed on our servers, and deleted automatically after a few hours — no sign-up, no watermark, never shared.

Why Convert TGZ to ZIP?

TGZ (a tar archive wrapped in gzip, also written .tar.gz) is the de facto packaging format on Linux and macOS — it preserves Unix permissions, ownership, symlinks, and timestamps inside a single solid-compressed stream. ZIP, created by Phil Katz at PKWARE in 1989 and published as APPNOTE.TXT, takes a different approach: each file is compressed independently and indexed in a central directory at the end of the archive. That structural difference is exactly why people convert in this direction.

• Native Windows support — Windows Explorer has opened ZIPs without third-party software since Windows XP (2001). TGZ requires 7-Zip, WinRAR, or PowerShell tar (available by default since Windows 10 build 17063).
• Random access to individual files — ZIP's central directory lets you extract file #50 without reading files 1-49. TGZ is a continuous gzip stream, so picking one file means decompressing everything up to it. For large archives where you only need one entry, ZIP is dramatically faster.
• Sharing with non-technical recipients — email attachments, client deliverables, and Slack uploads aimed at Windows users land better as ZIP. macOS Archive Utility also double-clicks ZIPs cleanly without needing the Terminal.
• Repackaging Linux source releases for Windows builds — many upstream projects ship .tar.gz only; CI runners on Windows often expect ZIP for actions/upload-artifact or NuGet packaging steps.
• Recovering partially corrupted archives — because ZIP entries are independent, a damaged ZIP often gives up only the affected file. A truncated .tar.gz typically loses everything past the corruption point.
• Cross-platform backups — ZIP is the lowest common denominator across Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS Files app, Android, and ChromeOS. If you don't know what platform the recipient is on, ZIP is the safer bet.

TGZ vs ZIP — Format Comparison

Combine Mode Quick Guide

Frequently Asked Questions

Will the folder structure inside my TGZ be preserved?

Yes. The directory tree captured by tar — including nested folders, relative paths, and the top-level folder name many open-source projects ship inside their tarball — is rewritten as ZIP entries with the same paths. If your .tgz extracts to project-1.2.3/src/..., the resulting ZIP opens to the same layout.

What happens to Unix file permissions, ownership, and symlinks?

ZIP cannot store Unix metadata the way tar can. File mode bits, uid/gid, and symbolic links are not represented in standard ZIP — they're dropped during conversion. If you need to preserve executable bits or symlinks (for example, distributing a Linux build), keep the archive as .tar.gz or use .tar.xz. ZIP is best when the recipient is on Windows or just needs the file contents, not the permission model.

Why is my ZIP slightly larger than the original TGZ?

TGZ uses solid compression — tar concatenates all files first, then gzip compresses the whole block, so the gzip dictionary can find patterns spanning multiple files (repeated copyright headers in source code, similar JSON schemas, etc.). ZIP compresses each file independently with Deflate, which can't share patterns across entries. For archives full of many small, similar text files the size penalty is real — usually 5-20%. For archives of one big binary, the difference is negligible.

Does the converter handle .tar.gz files, or only .tgz?

Both. .tgz and .tar.gz are the same format with different extensions — .tgz is just a shorter spelling commonly used on systems with 8.3 filename limits. Rename either way and the result is identical.

Can I extract a TGZ on Windows without converting it first?

Yes, on Windows 10 build 17063 (December 2017) and later, the built-in tar command in PowerShell or Command Prompt can extract .tar.gz directly: tar -xzf archive.tgz. You can also use 7-Zip or WinRAR. Converting to ZIP is mainly worth it when you need to hand the archive to someone who only uses Windows Explorer's built-in unzipper, or when you need random-access extraction of individual files.

What's the largest TGZ I can convert?

Conversion happens server-side; very large archives (multi-GB) may time out depending on your connection. For huge archives, command-line tools on your own machine are faster and avoid the upload. If you only need to repackage a small subset, extract first locally, then zip just the part you want to share.

Will the converted ZIP work on macOS and Linux too?

Yes. ZIP is supported natively by macOS Finder (Archive Utility) and by unzip on virtually every Linux distribution. The only caveat is the permission/symlink loss noted above — for cross-platform Linux/macOS workflows where execute bits matter, keep the original .tar.gz.

Need the reverse or a different target archive?

If you need to go the other way, use ZIP to TGZ. For other archive targets from TGZ, see TGZ to 7Z or TGZ to TAR (uncompressed tarball). To go from a plain .tar to ZIP, use TAR to ZIP.