Repackage archives
Convert between ZIP, TAR and TAR.GZ with configurable compression, and inspect contents before you download.
Drag and drop your files
or
Accepts ZIP, TAR, TAR.GZ, 7Z, RAR, GZIP. Up to 3 files at once, 100 MB each.
Free · up to 3 files · 100 MB each · files deleted automatically after 1 hour.
How archives conversion works here
The archive is rebuilt, not renamed
Converting between archive formats unpacks the source in full and writes its contents into a new archive. Nothing is passed through untouched, so the compression is performed again from scratch and the folder structure inside is preserved exactly.
That means the resulting size depends on the compression level you choose rather than on how the original was made. It defaults to 6, the sensible middle ground for deflate. Raising it buys a few percent for a disproportionate amount of time; lowering it is worth doing for archives full of photographs, audio or video, where the contents are already compressed and there is nothing left to squeeze.
Per-file and solid compression
ZIP compresses each file inside it separately, so a tool can jump straight to any single entry and decompress just that one. TAR.GZ concatenates everything into one stream and compresses the whole thing in a single pass, which lets it find patterns repeating across files — usually producing a noticeably smaller archive, at the cost of having to decompress everything before a given file to reach it.
There is a second difference that matters for anything destined for a server: tar-based formats record Unix permissions and symbolic links, and ZIP has no dependable place to put them. The executable bit is the one that goes missing most often.
What we read but cannot write
RAR, 7z and plain gzip are accepted as sources and repackaged into open formats. RAR compression is proprietary — readable freely, not writable by open tools, which is a licensing boundary rather than a technical one. Plain gzip compresses a single stream and has no concept of multiple files at all, which is why it is nearly always paired with tar.
One safety note for archives from any source you do not control: an archive can be crafted to expand to an enormous size from a very small file. Uploads with an abnormal compression ratio are rejected rather than unpacked.