Archive Explorer

← All formats

TOAST (Roxio disc image) file format

.toast · .tao  ·  disk image  ·  introduced 1998 by Roxio

What is a TOAST (Roxio disc image) file?

TOAST files are disc images created by Roxio Toast on the Mac. They are a thin wrapper around standard CD/DVD sector layouts plus Roxio metadata. macOS users encountered them constantly through the 2000s for Hybrid HFS+/ISO9660 disc burning. Modern Macs and most archivers can mount or convert them.

Most readers reach this page after double-clicking a .toast file and finding their operating system unsure what to do with it. The good news: TOAST (Roxio disc image) 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 TOAST (Roxio disc image) file

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

On Windows

  1. Locate the .toast 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 .toast 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: 
    7z x archive.toast    # works for almost any format
  3. The files appear in the current directory.

How to create a TOAST (Roxio disc image) file

To pack files into a .toast 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 TOAST (Roxio disc image).

On the command line, the canonical create command is:

# Use 7-Zip, PeaZip, or the format's reference tool to create .toast files.

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

  • Native to a popular Mac burner
  • Preserves Mac resource forks

Weaknesses and limitations

  • Mac-centric
  • Proprietary

Typical use cases

  • Mac CD/DVD backups
  • Hybrid HFS+/ISO9660 discs

Technical details

TOAST (Roxio disc image) uses the None algorithm and is identified on disk by the magic byte sequence (varies). The standard MIME type is application/x-toast. The format is a proprietary specification and is subject to license restrictions for some uses (notably creation).

Frequently asked questions

Is TOAST (Roxio disc image) safe to open?

Archive files are containers — they are only as safe as what they contain. A .toast 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?

Modern implementations support archives in the multi-terabyte range. The practical limit is your filesystem (FAT32 caps at 4 GB; ext4, NTFS, APFS, and exFAT all comfortably handle multi-TB files).

Can I password-protect a TOAST (Roxio disc image)?

Some archivers can wrap TOAST (Roxio disc image) files in an encrypted container, but the format itself does not always include built-in encryption. Check your archiver's documentation.

How does TOAST (Roxio disc image) 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