MakeFileWork

Extract TAR, TAR.GZ & GZ

Inspect and unpack common TAR/GZIP archives locally. TAR contents are repacked as a clean ZIP for convenient download.

What this tool actually does

Extract TAR/GZ works with the real archive structure or creates a new container; it does not rename an extension. The workflow is designed for bounded local processing, with size and entry limits that prevent uncontrolled expansion or browser resource use.

How the result is verified

MakeFileWork validates the structure it creates or inspects and reports which entries could be processed. An archive operation is ready when the resulting container can be serialized and the expected entries are present, not simply because a file can be offered for download.

Limits and fidelity

TAR and TAR.GZ archives can contain traversal paths, symbolic links, colliding names and special entry types. Universal batch rejects those archives rather than offering falsely verified downloads. A valid GZIP stream alone does not prove that the claimed TAR is valid. Size and expansion limits also apply.

When to use this workflow

Use this workflow to package, inspect or extract supported archives. If a ZIP is damaged and the goal is content recovery, use the dedicated ZIP repair workflow instead because it distinguishes verified, partial and incomplete recovery.

Privacy and final verification

Keep the original file until the output has been reviewed in the destination application or portal. Supported workflows process locally in the browser and enforce bounded size and complexity limits. For Extract TAR/GZ, verify that the generated format preserves the properties that matter for your use case. For important data, compare a representative sample and confirm that format, content and quality meet the actual requirement before replacing the source file. Also open the generated file in the destination application when compatibility, colour, transparency, layout or compression matters.

Extract multiple archives

Mix ZIP, TAR, TAR.GZ and GZIP. Every archive is validated before extraction. Failed archives are isolated and downloads are verified again.

Up to 8 files, 40 MB each, 60 MB input and 95 MB extracted.

Drop up to 8 archives here

Processing stays in your browser. A SHA-256 generated with the ZIP is not proof of origin; compare against an independent digest.

Supported

.tar, .tar.gz, .tgz and single-stream .gz files. Regular TAR files are extracted; symbolic and hard links are rejected.

Wrong extension? No extraction

A .tar file must contain raw TAR data, while .tar.gz and .tgz must be gzip streams containing TAR. A standalone .gz is a gzip stream and may hold non-TAR data. A mislabeled archive is rejected instead of returning a misleading ZIP or download. Renaming a file alone does not compress or decompress it.

Safety limits

40 MB input, 100 MB maximum expanded data, 25 MB per extracted file and 200 regular files. Absolute paths, parent traversal and unsafe links are blocked.

Integrity checks and unsupported formats

Before extraction, the TAR reader checks every header checksum, entry padding, the two-block end marker and trailing bytes. Duplicate output paths, unsafe control characters, hard links, symlinks and PAX/GNU metadata extensions are rejected rather than silently dropping files or changing filenames. Standard USTAR regular files are repacked as ZIP; directories are not separate downloads.

Why apparently valid TAR files can be refused

Two distinct TAR names can overwrite the same file on Windows or macOS: Report.txt and report.TXT, Unicode-equivalent spellings, or a file that conflicts with a directory. Reserved device names, backslashes and percent-encoded separators are also refused. The extractor stops instead of silently renaming or dropping entries, so the downloadable result cannot hide that loss.

How the extracted ZIP is verified

For accepted TAR files, the tool creates a stored ZIP, then reopens it to compare every filename, size, CRC32 and payload byte against the source TAR. This verifies structural fidelity, not the safety of executables or macros contained in the archive.

Check before extracting: diagnosis versus extraction

If you only need to understand why an archive fails to open, start with file diagnosis. A TAR signature or a GZIP header alone cannot prove integrity: diagnosis reads TAR entries or decompresses GZIP with checksum verification. A .tar.gz containing plain text instead of TAR is rejected. A damaged GZIP trailer is not silently accepted, and a protected or unsupported archive remains unverified. Only proceed to extraction when the archive structure is compatible.

Local processing

Extraction happens in the browser when its built-in gzip decompressor is available. Your archive is not sent to a conversion provider.

Extract several ZIP, TAR and GZIP archives together

The batch extractor accepts up to eight different archives and validates every ZIP entry or TAR header before offering a combined download. If one archive is damaged, it is rejected without discarding valid files from the others. Output names are flattened and prefixed with their archive position to prevent collisions. The JSON manifest records source and extracted-file SHA-256 hashes; the CSV audit reports rejected inputs. Reopen an earlier batch ZIP to verify its CRC32 and file hashes before downloading individual files. A checksum produced alongside an archive is not an independent authenticity guarantee.

Recover a rejected archive without losing successful extractions

Reopen the batch ZIP and choose only the rejected original archives to retry. The tool requires matching filename, byte count and SHA-256. If you repaired an archive externally, explicitly select the rejected row and supply the corrected file: its new identity and the previous source SHA-256 are recorded in the recovery history. Successful extracted files remain byte-identical; every rebuilt ZIP is verified before download. A repeated attempt on unchanged corrupt bytes may fail again, and a recovery does not authenticate the source.