Free online TAR.GZ to ZIP converter

Some Windows applications, upload forms, and document systems accept ZIP archives but reject TAR.GZ files. Converting the archive requires extracting its contents and placing them in a new ZIP file; changing the filename extension does not convert the format.

What the TAR.GZ format is

TAR.GZ combines two formats: TAR collects files and directories into one archive, then GZIP compresses the complete TAR stream. The usual extensions are .tar.gz and .tgz; TAR itself does not perform compression.

Linux and macOS software commonly creates TAR.GZ files with GNU Tar, BSD Tar, and related command-line tools. They are frequently used for open-source source-code downloads, Unix backups, server exports, and software packages.

What the ZIP format is

ZIP stores multiple files and directories in one archive and normally compresses each file independently. Windows, macOS, Linux, and most archive utilities can open ZIP files without installing a separate format-specific tool.

ZIP is useful when an application, upload service, recipient, or device specifically requires .zip. Its individual entries allow programs to inspect or extract selected files. ZIP supports encryption, but compatibility depends on the encryption method and the software opening the archive.

How to convert TAR.GZ to ZIP

Using 7-Zip on Windows

1. Install 7-Zip and open 7-Zip File Manager.
2. Browse to the .tar.gz file, select it, and choose 7-Zip → Extract Here or 7-Zip → Extract to “archive\”. This normally creates an intermediate .tar file.
3. Select the resulting .tar file and choose 7-Zip → Extract Here again. This extracts the actual files and directories.
4. Open the extracted location and select the files and folders that should appear in the ZIP. If the TAR contains one top-level directory, choose whether the ZIP should contain that directory or only its contents.
5. Choose 7-Zip → Add to archive, set Archive format to zip, specify a filename ending in .zip, and select OK.

Using the command line on Linux or macOS

Extract the archive into a separate directory, then create the ZIP from that directory’s contents:

mkdir tar-work
tar -xzf archive.tar.gz -C tar-work
cd tar-work
zip -r ../archive.zip .

The final command places the extracted contents at the root of archive.zip. To include the tar-work directory itself, run zip -r archive.zip tar-work from its parent directory instead.

If the zip command is unavailable, install the system’s ZIP utility or use a desktop archive manager such as 7-Zip, Ark, File Roller, or The Unarchiver. Test the generated archive with:

unzip -t ../archive.zip

Using the built-in online converter

You can convert the file on 101convert.com for free without installing software: upload the TAR.GZ file, choose ZIP as the output format, start the conversion, and download the result. Use local software instead for confidential files or archives containing sensitive data.

Quality and compatibility limits

The conversion is lossless for ordinary file contents: files are decompressed and recompressed rather than converted to a lower-quality format. The ZIP can be larger or smaller because GZIP compresses one complete TAR stream, while ZIP compresses individual entries using different settings.

Unix permissions, ownership, symbolic links, hard links, extended attributes, device files, and other special filesystem metadata may not survive extraction and re-archiving, particularly when Windows is involved. Ordinary documents and source-code files normally retain their contents, but executable packages or Unix backups may require the original TAR.GZ to preserve full behavior.

Password protection must be applied when creating the ZIP; it is not transferred automatically from TAR.GZ. ZIP encryption support varies between programs, so use a method supported by the intended recipient and verify that the resulting archive opens and contains the expected file list before deleting the original.