TGZ Converter
FileFlip converts TGZ files into 10 other formats entirely inside your browser, using libarchive compiled to WebAssembly. The TGZ file is never uploaded to a server: it is read off your disk, converted on your own machine, and saved back by the browser. There is no file-size limit and no account to create.
How do I convert a TGZ file?#
- Drop your TGZ file onto the converter at the top of this page, or click it to pick one from your computer.
- Choose the format you want out of it. FileFlip downloads the engine that conversion needs, once, and your browser caches it.
- Conversion starts the moment you pick the format, and the result is yours to download. The work happens in this tab, so nothing is uploaded and nothing is queued.
Is it safe to convert TGZ files online?#
Yes, because nothing is uploaded. FileFlip converts TGZ files inside the browser tab you already have open, using WebAssembly builds of the same engines a desktop converter would install. Your file is read from your own disk into the page's memory, and no request carrying it is ever made.
You do not have to take that on trust. Open your browser's network panel, run a conversion, and you will see the engine come down and your file go nowhere. There is no upload, no server-side copy, no retention window, and no account tied to what you converted.
How FileFlip works lists every engine, its version and its download size, and shows how to check for yourself that nothing leaves your machine.
What happens to a TGZ file#
FileFlip converts TGZ into 10 formats with libarchive, all of it inside the browser tab. Each conversion below names the engine it uses, what it downloads, and exactly what that conversion keeps or drops.
| Category | Archives |
|---|---|
| File extension | .tgz |
| FileFlip support | Read and written |
| Conversions available | 10 |
| Engines | libarchive |
| Downloaded to your browser | 1.0 MB on the first conversion, then cached |
What is a TGZ file?#
A TGZ file is the result of running tar to bundle files first and then gzip to compress that single resulting stream, packaged under one extension because DOS-era 8.3 filenames had no room for the two dots in .tar.gz.
Use TGZ for a Unix-style package or source release, where tar's metadata plus gzip's speed is the traditional, most widely supported combination.
Convert TGZ to TXZ when the smallest possible archive size matters more than compression speed.
The TGZ file format reference covers the specification, the programs that open one, and what each conversion keeps or drops.
TGZ questions people ask#
What's the difference between .tar.gz and .tgz?
Nothing; a TGZ file is a tar archive compressed with gzip, exactly the same content as a .tar.gz file. The .tgz spelling exists because older filesystems, notably DOS's 8.3 naming, couldn't handle a filename with two dots and a three-letter extension after each.
Can I open a specific file inside a TGZ without extracting everything?
Most tar tools can list or pull one named file from a TGZ, but they still have to decompress the gzip stream sequentially up to that point first, since there's no index. On a large archive this is slower than the same operation on a ZIP, where each file is compressed independently.
Why do open-source projects distribute source code as .tgz?
A TGZ keeps Unix file permissions and directory structure intact through tar while gzip compresses the whole thing down quickly, and gzip decompresses on essentially any system without extra tooling. That combination has been the default source-release format since long before xz or bzip2 existed.