Add your APK file
Drop one or more .apk files onto the converter above, or browse for them. They load into browser memory only — nothing is uploaded, so there is no size-based pricing and no server queue.
APK to TAR
Repacking a .apk archive as .tar moves the same files into a container with different compression and compatibility trade-offs. Free, private, and validated — the file never leaves your browser.
Private for supported formats — processed in your browser
Runs on your deviceConvert supported files
Drop APK files here
Batch files can each use a different output. Nothing uploads for local conversions.
Working inputs include camera RAW, browser-local audio/video, PDF, CBZ/CBR comics, office documents, ebooks, markup, 3D models, structured text, images, and archives.About converting Android package to TAR archive
Repacking a .apk archive as .tar moves the same files into a container with different compression and compatibility trade-offs. An .apk file is the package Android installs an application from. It is a ZIP archive with a fixed internal layout: a binary AndroidManifest.xml, compiled resources in resources.arsc, one or more Dalvik executables named classes.dex, native libraries under lib/, and a signature block appended after the ZIP data.
A .tar file is a tape archive: many files and directories laid end to end in a single uncompressed stream, preserving Unix permissions, owners, and symlinks. It bundles but does not compress — that job is delegated to gzip, bzip2, or xz layered on top. For this route the practical draw is exact preservation of Unix metadata that other archive formats drop and dead-simple, fully streamable structure — balanced against uncompressed on its own, so bare .tar files are as large as their contents, which is worth knowing before you commit a large batch.
Why convert APK to TAR?
The practical trigger for this conversion is usually a mismatch: with .apk, the manifest and resource table are compiled binaries, so raw extraction gives unreadable XML. Switching to .tar buys you exact preservation of Unix metadata that other archive formats drop, which is why it is the better fit for source code distribution across the Unix world. Because the conversion runs locally, trying it costs nothing but a few seconds of compute on your own machine.
APK vs TAR at a glance
| Aspect | Android package (.apk) | TAR archive (.tar) |
|---|---|---|
| Format type | Container — quality depends on the codecs and settings inside | Container — quality depends on the codecs and settings inside |
| How it stores data | the container is an ordinary ZIP, so any archiver lists its entries without Android tooling | each file gets a 512-byte header block (name, mode, uid/gid, size, mtime, type) followed by its data padded to 512-byte boundaries |
| Strongest at | pulling icons, layouts, or bundled assets out of an app for inspection | source code distribution across the Unix world |
| Weak spot | the manifest and resource table are compiled binaries, so raw extraction gives unreadable XML | uncompressed on its own, so bare .tar files are as large as their contents |
| Metadata | package name, version code, permissions, and component declarations live in the binary manifest, which is preserved byte for byte as an extracted file. The signature block sits outside the ZIP entries and does not survive repackaging | records owner and group both by name and numeric id, permission bits, and modification times — extraction as root can restore ownership faithfully |
Pick TAR as the output
Select .tar in the output menu next to each file. The menu only offers targets this engine can genuinely produce, so if TAR is selectable, the route is real and validated.
Convert on your device
Press Convert. Extraction and repacking use WebAssembly builds of real archive engines (libarchive and fflate) running in your browser.
Verify and download
Each result is signature-checked before the download unlocks, so a failed encode can never masquerade as a valid TAR file. Outputs keep the original filename with the .tar extension.
APK to TAR questions, answered
Will converting APK to TAR lose quality?
Since apk is container-oriented and tar is container-oriented, the conversion preserves the source content exactly as stored; no additional compression pass is applied beyond what .tar itself requires.
Is it private to convert APK files here?
Yes — the .apk file is processed inside your browser tab and never uploaded. Extraction and repacking use WebAssembly builds of real archive engines (libarchive and fflate) running in your browser. Close the tab and the file is gone from memory.
Where will the TAR file work?
Every Linux distribution, macOS, and the BSDs ship tar as a core utility, and Windows 10 and later include bsdtar at the command line. Graphical tools like 7-Zip open tarballs too, though they may need two passes for compressed variants.
Will the TAR file be bigger or smaller than my APK?
It depends on the content: each file gets a 512-byte header block (name, mode, uid/gid, size, mtime, type) followed by its data padded to 512-byte boundaries. Convert one representative file first and compare before batch-processing a large set.
What happens to the metadata in my APK file?
In .apk, package name, version code, permissions, and component declarations live in the binary manifest, which is preserved byte for byte as an extracted file. The signature block sits outside the ZIP entries and does not survive repackaging. Re-encoding through the browser pipeline does not carry embedded metadata into the output, which doubles as a privacy scrub — check the exported file if you specifically need tags preserved.