Convert ZIP to TAR.GZ online

Q: How do I convert a ZIP to a tar.gz online?

Open the page and drop your `.zip` onto it. The archive is unpacked in your browser, the file tree opens, and you click **Convert** in the toolbar, choose **TAR.GZ**, and download the rebuilt tarball. No command line, no install, no upload — the whole unpack-and-repack runs in your tab.

Drop a .zip and download a .tar.gz — unpacked and re-packed entirely in your browser, no command line, no upload.

Drop your .zip anywhere on this page

The zip is unpacked and re-packed as a tar.gz entirely in your browser — nothing is uploaded.

Converting a .zip to a .tar.gz means unpacking every entry in the ZIP and re-packaging the files as a single tar stream, then passing that stream through gzip. The usual reason is the destination, not the file: Linux build servers, CI pipelines, and open-source release conventions speak tarball, and handing one of them a .zip means somebody runs an unzip-then-repack step on the other end. Most "zip to tar.gz" sites do that repack on a server — you upload the ZIP, they process it, and send the tarball back. ZipTool does the unpack-and-repack entirely in your browser: you drop the .zip on the page, and nothing is uploaded and nothing installed.

You open the page, drop the .zip onto it, and the file tree renders locally — the ZIP is read by the page's own zip reader, with no decoder module to download. Click Convert in the file-tree toolbar, pick TAR.GZ as the output, and download the rebuilt tarball. If the ZIP is password-protected, enter the password when it opens (AES-encrypted ZIPs are decrypted in-browser) and the conversion proceeds as usual. For the format background, see the ZIP format page and what is a tar.gz file.

How to convert ZIP to TAR.GZ in your browser

No command line, no upload. The browser decodes the .zip and writes the .tar.gz locally.

Go to ZipTool and drag the .zip onto the page (or use the file picker, or paste a URL). The archive is decoded in your browser and the file tree opens.
Click Convert in the file-tree toolbar (next to Extract-all). The converter reads the ZIP entries that are already in memory.
Choose TAR.GZ as the output format. The entries are re-packed into a standard .tar.gz in USTAR format and gzip-compressed
Download the .tar.gz. The rebuilt archive is produced locally and handed to you as a download — your original ZIP and its contents are never transmitted anywhere.

Is it really private?

Yes. "Online" here describes where the tool runs — a web page — not where your data goes. The .zip is decoded by an in-page zip reader running inside your tab, the entries are re-packed into a TAR.GZ in memory, and the result is offered as a download. No server ever receives your file, its contents, or the converted archive.

You can prove it to yourself in a few seconds. Drop a .zip onto the page, wait for the file tree to open, then disconnect from the internet. The convert-to-TAR.GZ step still works, because nothing about it depends on a network request. A tool that fails the moment you go offline was uploading your data. ZipTool does not. For the broader privacy case, see why client-side is safer than uploading.

Why convert ZIP to TAR.GZ?

The motivation is almost always a system that expects a tarball. A deploy script that tar -xzfs an artifact, a CI job that consumes project-1.2.3.tar.gz, a repository whose contribution guide asks for a tarball patch — in each case a ZIP is friction, and converting it before it leaves your hands moves that friction to where it costs nothing. These are also exactly the files (build artifacts, internal source) you least want sitting on a random conversion server, which is the default at most "zip to tar.gz" sites.

Set one expectation: the size will land about where it started. The files inside the ZIP are already compressed, and gzip — a close cousin of ZIP's Deflate — re-compresses the unpacked stream to a similar footprint. Archives of many small text files sometimes come out slightly smaller, because gzip compresses one continuous stream and catches redundancy *between* files that per-file Deflate missed; archives of already-compressed media (photos, video) gain nothing. The win here is convention, not bytes. There is also a structural trade to know: a tar.gz is one solid stream — a reader must decompress everything before it to reach the last file — while a ZIP keeps an index and jumps to any entry instantly. Going the other way is converting a tar.gz to ZIP; for the wider picture, see archive file formats.

Honest limits

Conversion is a real capability here, with a few real boundaries worth knowing.

You cannot convert TO RAR or 7Z. RAR encoding is proprietary to WinRAR — no browser (and no honest free tool) can *create* a .rar. ZipTool's converter takes ZIP, RAR, 7z, tar.gz, tar, or gz as input and writes ZIP, TAR, or TAR.GZ — RAR and 7z are never targets. See creating a zip online.
Unix metadata is not conjured. The tar format can carry permission bits, ownership, and symbolic links — a ZIP never recorded any of those, so the rebuilt entries get normalized defaults. If a downstream install script depends on exact permissions, set them at the destination.
Browser memory is the ceiling. The tab holds the decoded entries and the rebuilt TAR.GZ in memory, so a very large .zip can get slow. For multi-gigabyte archives a desktop tool is more reliable.

Frequently asked questions

How do I convert a ZIP to a tar.gz online?

Open the page and drop your .zip onto it. The archive is unpacked in your browser, the file tree opens, and you click Convert in the toolbar, choose TAR.GZ, and download the rebuilt tarball. No command line, no install, no upload — the whole unpack-and-repack runs in your tab.

Do you upload my zip to convert it?

No. The ZIP is read by the page's own zip reader, the entries are packed into a tar and gzip-compressed in memory, and the result is downloaded locally. Your file is never sent to a server, stored, or handed to a third party. Confirm it in DevTools (the Network tab shows no upload of your file) and by converting with the internet disconnected, which still works.

Will the tar.gz be smaller than the zip?

Usually within a few percent either way. The data was already compressed once; gzip re-compresses the unpacked stream with a sibling algorithm and lands near the same size. The exception in your favor: many small text files can come out slightly smaller, since one continuous gzip stream catches redundancy between files that per-file Deflate misses. Already-compressed media (JPEG, MP4) will not shrink further.

Can it convert a password-protected zip?

Yes, when you know the password. Enter it when the archive opens — ZipTool decrypts password-protected ZIPs in the browser, including AES-encrypted ones the built-in Windows and macOS tools often reject — and the convert step then works as usual. It cannot convert an encrypted archive without the key.

Why do Linux users prefer tar.gz over zip?

History and metadata. Tar preserves the things Unix packaging cares about — permission bits, ownership, symbolic links — and gzip-on-a-stream was the native compression long before ZIP was common on Unix. Source distributions standardized on name-version.tar.gz, and decades of tooling expect it. For interchange with Windows users the choice reverses — ZIP opens everywhere — which is why the converter runs both directions.

Can I convert a tar.gz back to a ZIP?

Yes — open any tar.gz and convert to ZIP, or use the dedicated tar.gz to ZIP page.