Open GZ Files

Open GZ files online: decompress gzip (.gz) files and unpack .tar.gz bundles in your browser, then download the result. Free, private, nothing is uploaded.

Files are processed in your browser and never uploaded.

How to open a GZ file

  1. Drop a .gz or .tgz file onto the drop zone above, or click Choose a file.
  2. The Password (only if the archive is encrypted) box is not needed. Gzip has no encryption.
  3. Click Decompress.
  4. What you get depends on what was compressed:
    • a single compressed file, such as access.log.gz, is restored with the .gz removed (access.log);
    • a tarball (.tar.gz or .tgz) is unpacked and every file inside is listed.
  5. Save the result with Download. For tarballs with several files, Download all (ZIP) bundles them.

Decompression happens locally in your browser. Logs, database dumps and other sensitive data never leave your computer.

What gzip is and where .gz files come from

gzip is a compression program written by Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler in the early 1990s as a free replacement for the Unix compress tool. It uses the Deflate algorithm, the same one inside ZIP files, but it compresses exactly one stream. A .gz file has no table of contents and cannot hold a folder. That is why multi-file bundles are first packed with tar and then gzipped.

You will meet single-file .gz files in many places:

  • rotated server logs such as syslog.2.gz or access.log.1.gz;
  • database and SQL dumps, for example backup.sql.gz;
  • data exports and CSV feeds, and compressed sitemaps like sitemap.xml.gz;
  • manual pages and other files on Linux systems.

Web servers also use gzip on the fly to shrink pages in transit, but browsers undo that automatically, so you rarely see it as a file.

Decompressing on the command line

On Linux and macOS, gunzip file.gz (or gzip -d file.gz) replaces the compressed file with the original. Add -k to keep the .gz as well, or use zcat file.gz to print the contents without writing a file. For a tarball, tar -xzf file.tar.gz does both steps at once. Windows has no built-in gunzip command, although its tar.exe handles .tar.gz.

Tips

  • To create .gz files, use the GZIP Compressor, which compresses each file you add separately.
  • For tarballs compressed with bzip2 or xz, use Extract TAR.
  • Opening a ZIP, RAR or 7Z instead? The Archive Extractor reads them all.

Frequently asked questions

Can I open .bz2 or .xz files here too?

Only when they are tarballs (.tar.bz2 or .tar.xz). Single-file .bz2 and .xz files cannot be decompressed by these tools.

The decompressed file has no extension. What is it?

The tool removes only .gz, so a file called data.gz becomes data. Check where it came from; logs and dumps are usually plain text that any text editor opens.

Is there a size limit?

The compressed file and its decompressed result are both held in browser memory. Inputs over about 700 MB are slow and over 2 GB are refused.

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