| Extension | Compression | Flag | Example | |-----------|-------------|------|---------| | .tar | None | -cf | tar -cf archive.tar files/ | | .tar.gz / .tgz | Gzip | -czf | tar -czf backup.tgz docs/ | | .tar.bz2 | Bzip2 | -cjf | tar -cjf archive.tar.bz2 data/ | | .tar.xz | LZMA2 / XZ | -cJf | tar -cJf logs.tar.xz *.log | | .tar.zst | Zstandard | --zstd | tar -cf archive.tar.zst --zstd folder/ |
Unlike ZIP files, a standard .tar file does compress data; it only aggregates it. To save space, tar is frequently combined with compression algorithms like Gzip (resulting in .tar.gz ) or Bzip2 (resulting in .tar.bz2 ). Native Support in Windows 10 and 11 tar for windows
WIN-TAR-2024-01 Date: April 14, 2026 Author: Systems Engineering Department Subject: Implementation and Usage of Tar Archiving Utility on Microsoft Windows Operating Systems | Extension | Compression | Flag | Example
:: Extract .tar.xz tar -xJvf archive.tar.xz tar for windows