TAR file: How to open? The best software for opening tar files

TAR

Unix standard Archive format, Tape Archive

File type: Archive and compressed file

Files with tar extension may be most often found as compressed archives in Unix standard archive format.

What is tar file?

File type category:
Archive and compressed file

Date updated: July 19, 2025

File extension tar is commonly used for Unix standard archive file format.

A tar file contains multiple files stored as one archive created with the Unix tar program. These files are not automatically compressed, so they are often compressed with Gnu Zip (which creates a gz file).

A filename that ends in "tar.gz" is a TAR archive that has been compressed with Gnu Zip compression; sometimes the shortened tgz extension is used as well.

MIME types:
appliation/x-tar
application/x-tar
application/tar
applicaton/x-gtar
multipart/x-tar
application/x-compress
application/x-compressed

How to open tar file?

Standard file format supported by many archive programs.

How to convert tar file?

Repack the files to another compression format.

Suggested software to open tar file:

Associated software actions with the tar file

Open

Software applications that can open tar files:

WinZip (Microsoft Windows)

WinRAR (Microsoft Windows)

ALZip (Microsoft Windows)

7-zip (Microsoft Windows)

IZArc (Microsoft Windows)

PeaZip (Microsoft Windows)

ZipZag (Microsoft Windows)

Zipeg (Microsoft Windows)

Zipeg for Mac (Apple macOS / Mac OS X)

sArchiver (Apple macOS / Mac OS X)

StuffIt for Mac (Apple macOS / Mac OS X)

Decompressor (Apple macOS / Mac OS X)

TAR (Linux/Unix)

Xarchiver (Linux/Unix)

GNU cpio (Linux/Unix)

RAR for Android (Google Android)

Edit

Software applications that can edit tar files:

TAR (Linux/Unix)

Save

Software capable of saving tar files:

TAR (Linux/Unix)

Create

Software apps that create tar files:

ALZip (Microsoft Windows)

7-zip (Microsoft Windows)

sArchiver (Apple macOS / Mac OS X)

TAR (Linux/Unix)

Convert

Software apps that convert tar files:

ALZip (Microsoft Windows)

Extract

Software apps that extract tar files:

WinRAR (Microsoft Windows)

WinZip (Microsoft Windows)

ALZip (Microsoft Windows)

7-zip (Microsoft Windows)

WinArchiver (Microsoft Windows)

IZArc (Microsoft Windows)

PeaZip (Microsoft Windows)

ZipZag (Microsoft Windows)

Zipeg (Microsoft Windows)

The Unarchiver (Apple macOS / Mac OS X)

StuffIt Expander for Mac (Apple macOS / Mac OS X)

Zipeg for Mac (Apple macOS / Mac OS X)

sArchiver (Apple macOS / Mac OS X)

StuffIt for Mac (Apple macOS / Mac OS X)

Decompressor (Apple macOS / Mac OS X)

TAR (Linux/Unix)

Xarchiver (Linux/Unix)

GNU cpio (Linux/Unix)

iZip (Apple iOS)

RAR for Android (Google Android)

Recover

Software apps that recover tar files:

Advanced TAR Repair (Microsoft Windows)

Advanced Archive Repair (Microsoft Windows)