Archive Explorer

← All formats

TAR.ZST file format

.tar.zst · .tzst  ·  archive+compression  ·  introduced 2016 by Unix community

What is a TAR.ZST file?

A tar.zst file is a TAR archive compressed with Zstandard. It hits a sweet spot of fast compression and decompression with ratios competitive with xz at moderate levels. Arch Linux switched its package format to .pkg.tar.zst in 2019 specifically because installs became dramatically faster.

Most readers reach this page after double-clicking a .tar.zst file and finding their operating system unsure what to do with it. The good news: TAR.ZST is a well-understood format with mature tooling on every major platform. It is supported in one click by mainstream archivers on Windows, macOS, and Linux.

How to extract a TAR.ZST file

Opening a .tar.zst file is straightforward on every modern operating system. The exact steps depend on which platform you are on:

On Windows

  1. Locate the .tar.zst file in File Explorer.
  2. Right-click the file. If you have 7-Zip installed, choose 7-Zip → Extract Here. On Windows 11 the built-in extractor handles ZIP, 7z, RAR and several other formats directly through Extract All…
  3. If prompted, pick a destination folder and click Extract.
  4. The extracted files appear in a folder next to the original archive.

On macOS

  1. Find the .tar.zst file in Finder.
  2. Install The Unarchiver from the Mac App Store, or Keka for both creating and extracting.
  3. Right-click the file → Open With → The Unarchiver (or just double-click after Unarchiver is set as the default).
  4. The extracted folder appears next to the archive.

On Linux

  1. Use your file manager: right-click the archive → Extract Here (file-roller on GNOME, Ark on KDE).
  2. On the command line, run one of: 
    tar -xf archive.tar.zst
  3. The files appear in the current directory.

How to create a TAR.ZST file

To pack files into a .tar.zst archive, you typically need an archiver that supports writing this format. Not every tool can create every format — for example, only WinRAR can create real RAR files. The sidebar lists the software known to read and write TAR.ZST.

On the command line, the canonical create command is:

tar --zstd -cf archive.tar.zst folder/

If you regularly create archives at scale, a dedicated archive automation suite can wrap this command in scheduled jobs, integrity checks, and offsite replication.

Strengths

  • Fast in both directions
  • Tunable from level 1 to 22
  • Dictionary mode for many small files

Weaknesses and limitations

  • Requires modern tar (1.31+)
  • Older systems may lack zstd

Typical use cases

  • Arch Linux packages
  • Container image layers
  • Modern backup systems

Technical details

TAR.ZST uses the TAR + Zstandard algorithm and is identified on disk by the magic byte sequence 28 B5 2F FD. The standard MIME type is application/zstd. The format is an open specification and is free for any use.

Frequently asked questions

Is TAR.ZST safe to open?

Archive files are containers — they are only as safe as what they contain. A .tar.zst from a trusted source is fine; one received from a stranger can hold malicious executables, scripts, or files engineered to exploit bugs in your archiver. Always keep your archiver updated, and never run unknown executables that come out of an archive. A safe workflow is to extract into a sandbox and scan the contents before opening anything.

What is the maximum file size?

POSIX TAR is limited to 8 GB per file in the historical header, but the GNU and PAX extensions raise this to 8 ZB and are universally supported by modern tar implementations.

Can I password-protect a TAR.ZST?

Not natively. TAR and the standard Unix compressors do not include encryption. Wrap the archive with GnuPG or age for confidentiality, or use a format like 7z that builds AES-256 in.

How does TAR.ZST compare to other formats?

See our format comparison pages such as ZIP vs 7z, ZIP vs RAR, and tar.gz vs tar.xz for side-by-side feature tables.

Related formats