Free online TAR.GZ to ISO converter

A virtual machine, installer, burner, or hardware device may require an ISO image instead of a TAR.GZ archive. Conversion extracts the archive and creates a new ISO filesystem containing those files; it does not simply rename the extension or make the result bootable.

What the TAR.GZ format is

TAR.GZ combines two formats: TAR stores files and directories in one archive, while GZIP compresses the TAR data. Linux and Unix users commonly use it for source-code packages, software distributions, backups, server data, and exported directories; .tgz is a common abbreviated extension.

A TAR.GZ file is an archive rather than a disk image. It does not inherently contain ISO 9660 filesystem data, optical-disc sectors, a partition table, an El Torito boot catalog, or other disc-image boot metadata. GNU tar, 7-Zip, WinRAR, and The Unarchiver can extract it.

What the ISO format is

An ISO is a disk-image file containing a filesystem, commonly ISO 9660 with optional Joliet, Rock Ridge, or UDF extensions. Operating systems can mount it as a virtual CD or DVD, and disc-writing utilities can burn it to optical media. Virtual machines, installers, recovery environments, and some hardware tools accept ISO because it packages a directory tree in a standard disc-image format.

Building an ISO from extracted files creates a new filesystem image. It does not preserve all TAR metadata, and it does not create a bootable image unless the required boot files and platform-specific boot structures are deliberately added during image creation.

Convert with xorriso on Linux

Install xorriso with the distribution's package manager. On Debian or Ubuntu:

sudo apt install xorriso
mkdir extracted
tar -xzf archive.tar.gz -C extracted
xorriso -as mkisofs -r -J -o output.iso extracted/

The -r option adds Rock Ridge information for Unix-style names and commonly used permissions; -J adds Joliet names for Windows compatibility. Inspect the archive first: if it contains one top-level directory, use that directory as the source when the ISO should open directly at its contents rather than showing an extra directory level.

Check the result by mounting it or listing it with:

xorriso -indev output.iso -ls

Convert with xorriso on macOS

Install xorriso with Homebrew, extract the archive, and create the image:

brew install xorriso
mkdir extracted
tar -xzf archive.tar.gz -C extracted
xorriso -as mkisofs -r -J -o output.iso extracted/

Mount output.iso in Finder or Disk Utility and verify its directory structure. macOS also includes hdiutil, which can create a hybrid image from a folder:

hdiutil makehybrid -o output.iso -iso -joliet -udf extracted

Convert on Windows

1. Install 7-Zip, right-click the archive, and choose 7-Zip → Extract Here. If this produces a .tar file, extract that file again; TAR and GZIP are separate layers.
2. Install a desktop image authoring tool such as AnyBurn and choose Create image file from files/folders.
3. Add the extracted files or the intended source folder, select ISO as the output type, choose a filename such as output.iso, and create the image.
4. Mount the ISO in File Explorer and check the files, directory levels, and required filenames.

Windows does not provide a general-purpose built-in command for creating an ISO from an arbitrary folder. A Windows build of xorriso or the Windows Subsystem for Linux is an alternative to a graphical tool.

Use the built-in online converter

You can convert the file on 101convert.com for free without installing software: upload the TAR.GZ, select ISO as the output format, start the conversion, and download the result. Use this option only for archives that are safe to upload and within the service's size limits; do not upload confidential backups, credentials, private source code, or regulated data.

Quality and compatibility limits

• Extracting removes GZIP compression, so the ISO is often larger than the original TAR.GZ. This is repackaging, not an additional compression method.
• Putting archive.tar.gz inside an ISO creates an ISO containing one compressed archive. Extract the TAR.GZ first when the ISO must contain the archive's files.
• A generic folder-to-ISO command does not create a bootable installer. Bootability requires suitable boot files plus an El Torito boot catalog, EFI boot image, or other platform-specific structures. If the TAR.GZ was made by extracting an existing bootable ISO, that boot metadata was not normally included and cannot be restored reliably from the files alone.
• ISO 9660 restricts filenames and paths. Joliet improves Windows filename compatibility and Rock Ridge improves Unix names and metadata, but symbolic links, hard links, ownership, device files, extended attributes, and some permissions may not survive consistently across systems.
• Mount the completed ISO and compare its contents with the extracted source before deleting the original. A checksum such as sha256sum output.iso verifies the downloaded or transferred ISO file, not equivalence with the original TAR.GZ.