Add your CAB file
Drop one or more .cab 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.
CAB to TAR
Repacking a .cab 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 CAB 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 Cabinet archive to TAR archive
Repacking a .cab archive as .tar moves the same files into a container with different compression and compatibility trade-offs. A .cab file is a Microsoft Cabinet archive, the compression container Windows itself uses for installers, driver packages, and system updates. You usually meet one inside a setup program rather than as something people create by hand.
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 CAB to TAR?
The practical trigger for this conversion is usually a mismatch: with .cab, windows-centric, with little reason to choose it for general archiving. 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.
CAB vs TAR at a glance
| Aspect | Cabinet archive (.cab) | 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 | supports three compression schemes: MSZIP (DEFLATE), the stronger LZX, and the older Quantum | 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 | windows Update and servicing stack payloads | source code distribution across the Unix world |
| Weak spot | windows-centric, with little reason to choose it for general archiving | uncompressed on its own, so bare .tar files are as large as their contents |
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.
CAB to TAR questions, answered
Will converting CAB to TAR lose quality?
Since cab 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 CAB files here?
Yes — the .cab 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 CAB?
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.