XZ Converter
FileFlip converts XZ files into 10 other formats entirely inside your browser, using libarchive compiled to WebAssembly. The XZ 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 an XZ file?#
- Drop your XZ 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 XZ files online?#
Yes, because nothing is uploaded. FileFlip converts XZ 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 XZ file#
FileFlip converts XZ 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 | .xz |
| 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 an XZ file?#
An XZ file is a single stream compressed with LZMA2 inside a container that adds framing, size fields and a CRC or SHA-256 integrity check, specified by the Tukaani project's xz format starting in 2009.
Use XZ when the smallest practical archive size matters more than how long compression takes, which is why Linux distributions compress their packages and kernel source with it.
Convert XZ to GZ when the archive needs to decompress on something old or constrained enough that gzip's lighter decoder matters.
The XZ file format reference covers the specification, the programs that open one, and what each conversion keeps or drops.
XZ questions people ask#
Why do Linux distributions use .xz for packages?
xz compresses tighter than gzip or bzip2 on most data while still decompressing quickly, which matters because package managers decompress far more often than they compress. That ratio-versus-decompression-speed balance is why Debian, Fedora and the Linux kernel have shipped source and package archives as .xz for years.
Is xz the same as LZMA?
xz is a container format built around LZMA2, an improved version of the older LZMA algorithm, adding a proper file header, block structure and a CRC or SHA-256 integrity check that raw LZMA files never had. The Tukaani Project's .xz format specification was first released in 2009.
Why is xz compression so slow?
xz's LZMA2 algorithm searches harder for redundancy than gzip's DEFLATE or bzip2's Burrows-Wheeler transform, which is exactly what gives it a better compression ratio, but that search takes real CPU time and memory, especially at higher presets. Decompression doesn't carry this cost and stays fast.
Was the xz format itself compromised in the 2024 backdoor?
No. The 2024 incident, CVE-2024-3094, planted malicious code in the XZ Utils build scripts and the liblzma library in versions 5.6.0 and 5.6.1, not in the .xz file format itself. Files compressed as .xz were never the vector; the risk was in that specific compromised version of the software that reads and writes them.