Add your AR file
Drop one or more .ar 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.
AR to TAR
Repacking a .ar 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 AR 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 Unix ar archive to TAR archive
Repacking a .ar archive as .tar moves the same files into a container with different compression and compatibility trade-offs. An .ar file is a Unix `ar` archive — the oldest archive format still in everyday use, and about as simple as an archive can be: a seven-byte signature followed by 60-byte plain-text headers each introducing one member. Static libraries (.a) and Debian packages (.deb) are both ar archives.
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 AR to TAR?
The practical trigger for this conversion is usually a mismatch: with .ar, no compression at all, so archives are the sum of their members. 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.
AR vs TAR at a glance
| Aspect | Unix ar archive (.ar) | 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 file begins with the eight-byte string `!<arch>` followed by a newline | 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 | opening a Debian package's outer container without dpkg | source code distribution across the Unix world |
| Weak spot | no compression at all, so archives are the sum of their members | uncompressed on its own, so bare .tar files are as large as their contents |
| Metadata | the header's mode, ownership and timestamp fields are read; ZIP output preserves names and sizes | 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.
AR to TAR questions, answered
Will converting AR to TAR lose quality?
Since ar 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 AR files here?
Yes — the .ar 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 AR?
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 AR file?
In .ar, the header's mode, ownership and timestamp fields are read; ZIP output preserves names and sizes. 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.