File Archiver

Bundle any files or whole folders into a single ZIP, TAR, TAR.GZ, or GZIP archive, built entirely in your browser with nothing uploaded.

runs locally on your browser. Your data never leaves your device.

Drag & drop files or folders here

Any file type: PDFs, images, documents, code, anything

Archive format

Opens with a double-click on Windows, macOS, and most Linux desktops. Each file is compressed on its own.

Compression level

The usual balance of size and speed, the same default most zip programs use.

Saved as archive.zip

Common Use Cases

Bundle a signed contract, scanned ID, and payslips into one ZIP for a rental application without uploading them to a converter site
Turn a project folder into a .tar.gz with its directory structure intact before copying it to a Linux server
Gzip a large CSV export or SQL dump so it attaches to an email under the size limit
Pack a folder of photos with Store mode for a fast single download, skipping pointless recompression

About File Archiver

File Archiver packs any mix of files into one archive you can download, email, or store: PDFs, photos, spreadsheets, source code, or an entire folder tree dragged in from your desktop. You choose the container format. ZIP is the one every operating system opens with a double-click. TAR bundles files without compressing them and is the native container on Linux and macOS. TAR.GZ is a TAR bundle run through gzip as a single compressed stream, the format most Linux software and server backups ship in. GZIP compresses exactly one file, the way the gzip command does, and keeps that file's original name inside the header.

Most online zip tools upload your files to a server, compress them there, and send the result back. This one never does. The ZIP path uses the JSZip library running in your tab, the TAR writer is a small piece of code that lays out the 512-byte ustar header blocks itself, and TAR.GZ and GZIP use the CompressionStream API built into modern browsers. None of these open a network connection, so a folder of contracts, tax records, or unreleased designs stays on your machine from the moment you drop it in until the archive lands in your Downloads folder.

Folder structure is preserved. Drop a folder, or use Choose folder, and every file keeps its relative path, so Photos/2024/beach.jpg extracts back into Photos/2024 rather than a flat pile. Operating system clutter such as .DS_Store, Thumbs.db, and desktop.ini is left out automatically. If two files would end up with the same path, including names that differ only in capital letters and would overwrite each other when extracted on Windows or macOS, the later one is renamed with a (1) suffix and the list says so. Paths are also cleaned of leading slashes and .. segments, so an archive made here can never unpack outside the folder it is extracted into.

For ZIP you can pick a compression level: Store packs files with no compression at all, Fast and Normal trade a little size for speed, and Maximum squeezes out the last few percent. Because JPEG, PNG, MP4, MP3, DOCX, XLSX, and existing archives are already compressed internally, deflating them again takes time and usually saves well under one percent, so by default those files are stored as-is while text, CSV, JSON, and PDF content is compressed. TAR archives with long or non-English file names use PAX extended headers, the POSIX standard for storing full UTF-8 paths, so names in any language survive extraction with GNU tar, bsdtar, 7-Zip, and Python's tarfile.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are my files uploaded anywhere to create the archive?
No. The archive is assembled in your browser tab. ZIP files are built with the JSZip library, TAR files are written by a small piece of local code, and gzip compression uses the CompressionStream API that ships inside Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Safari. No request carrying your files or their names is ever made, which you can confirm by watching the Network tab in your browser's developer tools while you create an archive.
Which format should I choose: ZIP, TAR, TAR.GZ, or GZIP?
Choose ZIP when the recipient uses Windows or you are not sure what they use, since every desktop opens it natively. Choose TAR.GZ for Linux servers, software releases, and backups, where it is the norm and often compresses many small text files better than ZIP. Choose plain TAR when you only need one bundle and compression would be wasted, such as a folder of videos. GZIP only makes sense for a single file, for example a large log or SQL dump.
Why can't I put more than one file in a GZIP file?
GZIP is a compression format, not a container. A .gz file holds one compressed stream plus a small header with an optional original file name and timestamp, and has no directory of entries. That is why Linux tools first bundle files with tar and then gzip the result, producing .tar.gz. If you add several files and pick GZIP, the tool asks you to switch to TAR.GZ instead of silently dropping files.
Why is my ZIP barely smaller than the original files?
Most photos, videos, music, Office documents, and existing archives are already compressed, and a second round of deflate compression finds almost nothing left to remove. A folder of JPEGs typically shrinks by less than one percent. Text formats such as CSV, JSON, logs, HTML, and source code are where compression pays off, often shrinking by 70 to 90 percent. The result panel reports the exact size change after the archive is built.
Are folder structures and file names preserved?
Yes. Files added from a dropped or chosen folder keep their relative paths inside the archive. Names with accents, Cyrillic, Chinese, emoji, or other non-ASCII characters are stored as UTF-8, flagged as such in ZIP entries and written into PAX extended headers in TAR, so they extract with the correct name. Duplicate paths are renamed with a numbered suffix rather than overwritten, and the file list shows which ones were changed.
Is there a size limit?
The combined size of everything you add is capped at 2 GB. The whole job runs in the memory of one browser tab, and the ZIP library reads each file completely before compressing it, so very large batches can exhaust memory on phones and older computers. ZIP files past 4 GB would also need the ZIP64 extension, which the library does not write. TAR and TAR.GZ read files as a stream and are the lighter choice for big batches.

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