Click the "Select File" button above, and choose your TGZ file.
You’ll see a preview, if available.
Click the "Convert file to..." button to extract text information.
Convert TGZ to another file type
To convert TGZ archives to another format, you need GNU Tar or other Compressed software.
Convert a file to TGZ
To convert other file formats to the "Gzipped Tar Archive" file type, you need software like GNU Tar or a similar tool.
About TGZ files
The .tgz file is a composite archive format created by bundling multiple files together using the TAR (Tape Archive) utility, and then compressing that bundle using GZIP. It is heavily utilized in Unix and Linux environments for distributing software packages and backing up data. Common software to open these files includes the native tar command line tool on macOS and Linux, or 7-Zip and WinRAR on Windows. While .tgz is efficient for archiving, it presents major disadvantages for casual desktop users. It requires a two-step extraction process (decompressing the gzip, then unpacking the tarball). Many older native Windows file managers cannot open it by default without third-party software, making file sharing with non-technical users extremely difficult. Furthermore, retrieving a single file from a large .tgz archive is notoriously slow because TAR is a solid archive; the extraction software must read the entire file sequentially to extract a single embedded item. For seamless sharing, web distribution, and everyday use, convert your .tgz files to ZIP. If you need higher compression without the sequential read penalty for archiving purposes, convert to 7Z.
Convert.Guru analyzes your TGZ file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.
If you want to convert TGZ file to ZIP, TAR, PST, PDF, ISO, CSV, QCOW2, RAR, 7Z, GZ, BZ2 or XZ, you can use GNU Tar or similar software from the "Compressed File Archiving" category. In the File menu, look for Save As… or Export….
To convert XXE, 7Z, Z, PAK, LHA, DEB, UUE, TAR, LZH, ZIP, PKG or RAR files to TGZ, try GNU Tar or another comparable tool in the "Compressed File Archiving" category.
The TGZ Converter Story
The history of Convert.Guru began over 25 years ago in California with Tom Simondi’s file-format database. A former contributor to Space Shuttle development and a software pioneer of the 1980s, Simondi established a trusted resource for file type analysis that was even referenced by Microsoft Windows XP. Today, we use modern technology to process and convert thousands of file formats while continually improving our TGZ converter.