Zstandard Extract (Decompress)
Extract Zstandard and tar.zst archives locally in your browser without uploading files. Read more
What is Zstandard extract?
Zstandard is the lossless format described in RFC 8878. A plain .zst restores one byte stream; .tar.zst or .tzst restores a TAR archive whose entries can then be listed and extracted. This tool handles both layers locally in the browser.
How to use this tool
Open .zst, .zstd, .tar.zst, or .tzst and review the detected contents. A single frame provides one restored file; Zstandard-compressed TAR may contain many files and folders. Inspect entry paths before saving. Use Zstandard Create for the reverse workflow.
Choosing the right format
Zstandard itself does not preserve a multi-file hierarchy; TAR does. Frames can optionally use content checksums or external dictionaries. A dictionary-dependent frame cannot be decoded without the matching dictionary and is outside this page’s inputs.
Important limitations
Untrusted frames can expand greatly, and embedded TAR can contain unsafe paths, links, or duplicate names. Content checksums are not authentication. Review entries, avoid overwrites, and use a sandboxed memory-limited extractor for large or suspicious archives.
Frequently asked questions
Why can another program not open the result?
The suffix may be misleading. A valid .tar.zst must first decode as Zstandard and then parse as TAR. Missing dictionaries, unsupported frames, corrupt data, and plain .zst without TAR are different cases.
Are my files uploaded?
No. Reading, decompressing, and preparing downloads happens locally in the browser.
Drag and drop a Zstandard file here, or choose Open Zstandard.
The archive is processed locally and is not uploaded.