Create and Extract TAR.GZ Archives

A .tar.gz file (also written .tgz) is exactly what the name says: a TAR archive that has then been run through gzip compression. This two-step design — bundle first, compress second — is why Unix and Linux systems standardized on it over a format like ZIP, which compresses each file individually as it bundles them: compressing the whole bundle at once as TAR.GZ does tends to find more redundancy across files, especially when the files are similar to each other (source code, config files, log archives).

This tool handles both steps at once from your perspective — drop files in and it TARs then gzips them, or drop a .tar.gz and it reverses both steps — but everything runs locally through a WebAssembly build of libarchive, so nothing is uploaded either way.

TAR.GZ remains the default download format for source code releases, Linux packages, and server backups because gzip compression is fast to decompress and available on essentially every server without extra installs — unlike formats needing a specific proprietary tool. The tradeoff is a lower compression ratio than newer algorithms like LZMA (used in 7z): gzip favors speed and universal compatibility over squeezing out the last few percent of file size.

If you specifically need the smaller file and know the recipient can open 7z, that format packs tighter for the same content; TAR.GZ is the better default when compatibility with older or minimal systems matters more.