TZ Converter
Convert files to and from TZ online for free. Fast, secure, and high-quality file conversion with no sign-up or software required.
Maximum file size is 1GB
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What is a TZ file?
A TZ file is a shorthand extension for a .tar.Z archive, consisting of a TAR container compressed using the historic Unix compress utility based on the Lempel-Ziv-Welch (LZW) algorithm. While largely superseded by Gzip, TZ files persist in legacy Unix systems. The format relies on an adaptive dictionary-based compression scheme and is identified by the magic numbers 0x1F 0x9D within the file header.
How to open a TZ file
Opening a TZ file requires a utility capable of handling LZW compression. On Linux/Unix, the uncompress command or gunzip can decode the stream before passing it to tar. For Windows users, 7-Zip fully supports the LZW algorithm and can extract the underlying TAR archive in a single operation.
TZ Technical Info
- Full Name
- Compressed Tar Archive
- Developed By
- Spencer Thomas (Lempel-Ziv-Welch)
- Initial Release
- 1984
- MIME Type
- application/x-compress
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