Convert RAR to TAR locally in your browser. The Archive engine reads the source container, validates its entries, and creates a new archive without uploading the contents.
Why convert RAR to TAR?
RAR is useful for compact distribution and desktop archive workflows, but ZIP and TAR-family outputs are often easier to consume in browsers, operating systems, build pipelines, and Unix tooling. This converter reads supported RAR archives locally and rebuilds their regular files and folders in TAR.
The 7Z/RAR decoder is a pinned libarchive WebAssembly runtime. It is lazy-loaded only when one of those input families is actually used; normal ZIP, TAR, and GZIP conversions do not initialize it.
What the converter preserves
| Archive detail | Current behavior |
|---|---|
| File tree | Nested safe paths are preserved when repackaging. |
| Empty directories | Directory entries are retained when the source decoder exposes them. |
| Timestamps | Entry modification times are carried forward when the source exposes them. |
| Unix permissions | Basic permission bits are preserved for native ZIP/TAR paths; 7Z/RAR inputs use safe target defaults where portable permission metadata is not exposed. |
| Original archive | Never modified. Conversion creates a new downloadable container. |
Archive formats do not share every metadata feature. Ownership IDs, access-control lists, extended attributes, sparse-file behavior, hard links, symbolic links, and vendor-specific metadata are not promised by the converter. Unsupported links and special entries are rejected instead of being silently dropped. Keep the source archive when those details matter.
Archive safety checks before repacking
- Path traversal protection: entries using
../, absolute roots, Windows drive roots, control characters, excessively long paths, or duplicate normalized paths are rejected. - ZIP integrity: ZIP input is opened with CRC checking so corrupt entries do not silently become valid-looking output.
- TAR integrity: TAR headers must pass checksum validation. PAX extended paths and GNU long-name records are understood for better real-world compatibility.
- 7Z/RAR policy: signature checks happen before the WASM decoder is used. Password-protected archives, links, device nodes, and unsupported special entries are rejected.
- Expansion limits: the worker stops archives that exceed the entry count, per-entry extracted size, or total expanded-size budget.
- Failure isolation: one invalid archive can fail without discarding successful results from the rest of a batch.
Compressed size is not a safe estimate of browser memory use. The Archive engine therefore applies limits to expanded content as it reads entries, including entries decoded through the 7Z/RAR WASM path.
How the browser-first archive workflow works
- Add archives. Choose supported 7Z, RAR, ZIP, TAR, TAR.GZ/TGZ, or single-file GZIP sources. Pair pages restrict selection to their expected input family.
- Choose the target. Use ZIP, TAR, or TAR.GZ. The page is already preset to the requested target format.
- Convert in a worker. Container parsing, decompression, validation, and repacking run away from the main UI thread. 7Z/RAR initializes the pinned WASM decoder only when needed.
- Download results. Save each archive individually or package successful batch outputs using the shared download workflow.
Limits and compatibility
The current Archive policy accepts up to 20 source archives, 75 MB per source, and 250 MB total source data per batch. After opening an archive, the engine allows at most 2,000 entries, 100 MB for one expanded file, and 250 MB total expanded content. These are browser-safety limits rather than server upload limits.
ZIP and TAR use the built-in Archive pipeline. TAR.GZ/TGZ and generic GZIP depend on browser gzip streams. 7Z and supported RAR4/RAR5 input use a build-pinned libarchive WASM runtime that is served as a static ConvertAnyFile asset and lazy-loaded by the Archive worker.
Before you use the converted archive
For software distribution, backups, deployment artifacts, or archives that rely on symbolic links, ownership, ACLs, extended attributes, sparse files, exact permissions, or reproducible metadata, verify the converted archive with the destination tool before replacing the original.