.Tar .tar.gz .tgz .gz files on Windows? This is how they compress and decompress

Compressing files so that they occupy less or to unify a large number of files in the same file is a practice that we have been doing for a long time. The most popular compression format is .zip, but there are many other popular formats, such as .rar. If we come from the world Linux or Unix, we may also be familiar with .tar .tar.gz .tgz or .gz, largely unknown to Windows users. For that reason, today we are going to see the simple steps to compress and decompress .tar .tar.gz .tgz .gz in Windows 10 and 11.

Although the most common is that we talk about ZIP or RAR when we refer to compressed files, this is only because we usually move in Windows environments. If we are familiar with other Linux or Unix-based operating systems, compressed files usually have other extensions. Luckily, this is not a problem for Windows that you can deal with them either with your own commands or by using trusted third-party applications.

What is the TAR or TAR.GZ format?

Linux, Unix or macOS users are more used to these types of files. In the case of Tar (from the English “Tape ARchiver”) This is a UNIX environment file format that is used to store files and directories in a single file, but not to compress them. Using compression programs like gzip, bzip2, xz, lzip, lzma, or compress we get files with extensions like .tgz or .tar.gz, .tbz, .tbz2, .tb2 or .tar.bz2, .taz, .tz or .tar.Z, .tlz or .tar.lz, .tar.lzma and .txz or .tar.xz for their extensions.

Tar is widely used in UNIX environments and its files are identified by the file suffix .tar. In this case, we are not talking about compressed files since, in that case, .tar.gz would be the resulting file when compressed by gzip. This can also be known as .tgz in its short version of the extension.

The tar format was standardized by POSIX.1-1998 and then by POSIX.1-2001. In addition, being designed for Unix, these files store all the meta information associated with the files that are included in these operating systems (last modified date, owner and permissions) in the same format as the UNIX system.

Working with .tar .tar.gz .tgz .gz on Windows

Although we are going to talk about compress and decompress these formats, It should be clarified that some are not actually compressed and are actually a grouping of files within a single file. Leaving this qualification aside, let’s see what we can do with these files in Windows 10.

Fortunately, there are more and more applications that we can use to compress and decompress these files. In Windows 10 we recommend the use of 7-Zip and PeaZip. Although there are many more alternatives, we will see how to work with these types of files with these two applications.

PeaZip

First, we will see how we can “join” these files to have several files unified in the same with or without compression with the popular PeaZip compressed file manager. It supports almost all types of compressed files, up to almost 200 different formats, and it also provides other cool features to manage all files in compressed archives.

Compress .tar .tar.gz .tgz .gz with PeaZip

To do this, we must have PeaZip installed on the computer and follow a few simple steps:

1. Open PeaZip
2. Find the files to compress
3. Select them with the mouse
4. Right click on the selected files and “Add to file”
5. In the first drop-down select GZip for tar.gz or TAR for .tar
6. To accept

Unzip .tar .tar.gz .tgz .gz with PeaZip

The process to “extract” the files contained in this archive are similar, but in reverse, following these steps specifically:

1. Right button on the compressed file
2. PeaZip> Extract here
3. We can also click on Extract … to define the path for us
4. We can also click on Open as Archive to open PeaZip and see the content of this

As we can see, simple steps to compress or decompress these most common formats in the UNIX environment in Windows 10, but which can be found on our computer at any time.

7-Zip

Another alternative we have is to do it with 7-Zip, the other free compressor par excellence for the operating system of the Redmond-based company. One of the best free and open source compressors and decompressors available today. Provides compatibility with all major formats and offers the ability to compress files in many different formats.

Compress .tar .tar.gz .tgz .gz with 7-Zip

In this case, we will only be able to create .tar and .gz files directly. To do this, we will follow these steps:

1. Open 7-Zip
2. Find the files to compress
3. Select them with the mouse
4. Right click on selected files and 7-Zip> “Add to file”
5. In the File Format drop-down select tar or gzip
6. To accept

Unzip .tar .tar.gz .tgz .gz with 7-Zip

The process to “extract” the files contained in this archive are similar, but in reverse, following these steps specifically:

1. Right button on the compressed file
2. 7-Zip> Extract here.
3. We can also click on Extract files … to define the path for us
4. We can also click on Open as Archive to open 7-Zip and see the content of this

Use CMD or the Windows command line

Luckily, the Windows operating system hides the ability to unzip .tar .tar.gz .tgz .gz files with the command prompt using the tar command. To do this, we will open CMD or command prompt with administrator permission. Once opened, we will have to enter the following command:

tar -xvzf C: test.tar -CC: test

we will change C: test.tar for the exact location of the file on our hard drive and C: test for the exact location of the folder where we want to extract the content. It is important that this destination folder is created beforehand since, if it is not created, the command will return the message “Tar: could not chdir to ‘C: test'”.

In the previous image we can see how all the content of the .tar file has been extracted in that new location without the need to install any third-party program or application. However, the two alternatives that we have discussed, such as PeaZip and 7-Zip, are fully reliable applications, free and with millions of users behind them that will not pose problems for our computer.

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