---
title: "Extract TAR.GZ Online — Open Tarballs Easily | Compress Pro"
description: "Open tar.gz, tgz, tar.bz2 and tar.xz tarballs in your browser — both layers unpacked automatically, every file its own download. Nothing uploaded."
canonical: https://compress-pro.com/extract-tar-gz
---

# Extract TAR.GZ tarballs.

> Open tar.gz tarballs in your browser — no terminal used.

A .tar.gz is two wrappers deep — gzip around tar around your files — which is why double-clicking one on Windows goes nowhere. Drop it here and **both layers unwrap automatically**; plain .tar, .tar.bz2 and .tar.xz work the same way. Each file inside becomes its own download.

**No uploads · No ads · Free & open source.**

## How it works

1. Drop files anywhere on the page, click to browse, or paste with Ctrl/⌘ + V.
2. Pick a quality or preset — or set an exact target size and let the tool find it.
3. Compress, compare before/after, and download — individually or as a ZIP.

## The tarball, translated

Source releases, GitHub archive downloads and node package tarballs all arrive as .tar.gz. Want a single Windows-friendly file instead of loose downloads? [TAR.GZ to ZIP](https://compress-pro.com/tar-gz-to-zip) repacks in one step. Building tarballs from scratch is [Create TAR.GZ](https://compress-pro.com/create-tar-gz).

## Frequently asked questions

### Why does Windows open tar.gz in two steps?

Because it really is two formats: unzipping the gzip layer yields a .tar, which needs opening again. This page runs the whole chain in one pass — you never see the intermediate tar.

### Which tarball variants unpack here?

tar.gz and .tgz, plain .tar, tar.bz2 and tar.xz — the layer stack is detected from the bytes, not the file name, so mislabeled downloads unpack fine too.

### What happens to file permissions and symlinks?

Browsers have no concept of unix permissions, so files download with defaults and symlinks are skipped. For source code and documents that is irrelevant; to deploy something executable, unpack on the target machine instead.

### Is it private?

Yes. The archive is opened and unpacked on your own device — its contents are never uploaded, and a password, if one is needed, is used locally and never transmitted. The server does nothing but deliver this page. Want proof? Run one file through, switch your connection off, and run another — it still works.

## Related tools

- [Convert TAR.GZ to ZIP](https://compress-pro.com/tar-gz-to-zip)
- [Create TAR.GZ tarballs](https://compress-pro.com/create-tar-gz)
- [Extract GZ files](https://compress-pro.com/extract-gz)

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Part of [Compress Pro](https://compress-pro.com/) — every tool page has a markdown twin at `<page url>.md`. Full tool index: [llms.txt](https://compress-pro.com/llms.txt)