How do I open a .tar.gz file on Windows?

Run "tar -xf archive.tar.gz" in PowerShell, which handles both layers in one go on Windows 10 and later. With 7-Zip you extract twice: once to produce the .tar, then again to get the files.

What is the difference between .tar and .tar.gz?

A .tar only bundles files together with no compression. A .tar.gz is that bundle then compressed with gzip, so it is much smaller and needs both layers undone to reach the contents.

File extensions

How to open a .tar file

Tape archive · Compressed archive

A .tar file bundles files together without compressing them. macOS and Linux open it with a double-click or one command; on Windows use 7-Zip, and expect to unpack twice if it ends in .tar.gz.

What a .tar file actually is

TAR comes from Unix tape backups, which is why it only concatenates files and preserves permissions rather than compressing anything. Compression is bolted on separately, producing .tar.gz, .tar.bz2 or .tar.xz.

That two-layer design is the source of nearly all the confusion. A .tar.gz is a TAR wrapped in gzip, so extracting it fully means undoing two layers, not one.

Why it will not open

Windows 11 23H2 added native TAR support, but earlier versions have none. And with a .tar.gz, a first extraction appears to succeed and leaves you holding a .tar file, which reads as failure if you did not expect it.

Renaming it to an extension you can open will not help: changing the extension does not convert the file, it only changes what Windows tries to open it with.

Step by step

Windows

01On Windows 11 23H2 or newer, double-click. TAR is handled natively.
02Otherwise install 7-Zip, right-click the file, choose 7-Zip then "Extract here".
03For a .tar.gz you extract twice: once to get the .tar, then again on that .tar to get the actual files. 7-Zip does this in two passes by design.
04Windows also ships the tar command: run "tar -xf archive.tar.gz" in PowerShell and it handles both layers at once.

macOS

01Double-click. Archive Utility handles .tar, .tar.gz and .tgz in one step.
02In Terminal, "tar -xzf archive.tar.gz" extracts a gzipped tar, and "tar -xf archive.tar" a plain one.
03Add -v to either command to list files as they are extracted.

What usually goes wrong

Extracting a .tar.gz gives you a .tar

That is correct behaviour with tools that peel one layer at a time. Run the extraction again on the resulting .tar. The single-command "tar -xzf" does both at once and avoids the confusion entirely.

Programs that open .tar

Our pick, in order. Every one links to the publisher's official download URL and the SHA-256 hash of the installer. Once you have downloaded it, you can check the file against our index before you run it.

If you end up downloading one of these from somewhere other than the publisher, what you can and cannot verify about that is worth two minutes.

Also registers .tar in its manifest

Taken straight from publisher manifests. Some of these handle the format for a narrow purpose rather than as their main job.

Common questions

How do I open a .tar.gz file on Windows?: Run "tar -xf archive.tar.gz" in PowerShell, which handles both layers in one go on Windows 10 and later. With 7-Zip you extract twice: once to produce the .tar, then again to get the files.
What is the difference between .tar and .tar.gz?: A .tar only bundles files together with no compression. A .tar.gz is that bundle then compressed with gzip, so it is much smaller and needs both layers undone to reach the contents.