Tar For Windows May 2026

| 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/ | Zstd support requires Windows 11 22H2 or later. 4. Basic and Advanced Command Syntax 4.1 Core Operations | Operation | Command | |-----------|---------| | Create archive | tar -cf archive.tar folder1 file2.txt | | Extract archive | tar -xf archive.tar | | List contents | tar -tf archive.tar | | Extract to specific dir | tar -xf archive.tar -C C:\target | | Add files to existing tar | tar -rf archive.tar newfile.txt | | Verbose output | tar -xvf archive.tar | 4.2 Compression Examples :: Create .tar.gz tar -czvf backup.tar.gz C:\Users\Public\Documents :: Extract .tar.xz tar -xJvf archive.tar.xz

| Tool / Method | Archive Format | Time (sec) | Compressed Size | |---------------|----------------|------------|------------------| | Windows tar | tar.gz (level 6) | 8.4 | 890 MB | | 7-Zip (GUI) | 7z (ultra) | 12.7 | 812 MB | | PowerShell Compress-Archive | zip | 23.1 | 1.05 GB | | WinRAR (CLI) | rar5 (normal) | 9.2 | 878 MB | | Windows tar | tar.xz | 18.6 | 745 MB | | Windows tar | tar.zst (level 3) | 6.1 | 915 MB | tar for windows

choco install tar # or choco install gnuwin32-tar Prepared by Systems Engineering For internal distribution and technical reference. | Extension | Compression | Flag | Example

:: Enable long paths for current session reg add HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem /v LongPathsEnabled /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f :: Then run tar normally tar -xf large_archive.tar 5.1 PowerShell Usage # Invoke tar from PowerShell & tar.exe -czf backup.tgz "C:\Projects" Using pipeline (list files to archive) Get-ChildItem -Path .\src -Recurse | ForEach-Object $_.FullName | tar -czf src.tgz -T - 5.2 Task Scheduler Automation Create an XML task to run weekly backup: :: Enable long paths for current session reg

To verify installation:

:: Compress with maximum gzip (slowest, smallest) tar -czvf --options gzip:compression-level=9 backup.tar.gz largefolder/ :: Exclude .tmp and .log files tar -czf backup.tar.gz --exclude="*.tmp" --exclude="*.log" data/ :: Include only .txt files tar -czf texts.tar.gz --include="*.txt" data/ 4.4 Handling Long Paths (>260 chars) Windows tar supports long paths natively if enabled in system policy. To force:

tar --version Expected output: tar (GNU tar) 1.32 or higher.