Decompress .lz4 Files Online

How to decompress an LZ4 file online

1. Drop the .lz4 or .tar.lz4 file onto the box above, or click to choose it.
2. A single .lz4 lists the one file it contains. A .tar.lz4 shows its folders and files.
3. Download the decompressed file, or pick files from the archive and download them.

What LZ4 is used for

LZ4 trades compression ratio for speed. It compresses less than gzip but does so very fast, which is why backup jobs, database tools, log pipelines and system image builds use it when time matters more than disk space. The result is a .lz4 file for one compressed file, or a .tar.lz4 when a whole directory was archived with tar first.

Hardly any desktop file manager opens either, and the lz4 command has to be installed separately on most systems. This page handles both cases in the browser.

Frame format only

LZ4 data exists in more than one wrapping. Files written by the lz4 command-line tool use the LZ4 frame format, and that is what this tool reads. Programs that embed LZ4 inside their own file formats often store bare compressed blocks or add a private header instead. Such files may carry an .lz4 extension or something similar, but they are not frame files and will not open here.

Tarballs, size and privacy

A .tar.lz4 is unwrapped in one step, so you see files and folders, not an intermediate .tar. Like every compressed tarball it is one continuous stream, so reaching a file at the end of a large archive means decompressing what precedes it. Output goes to the browser’s temporary storage on disk, the file is not uploaded, and creating .lz4 files is not supported.

Frequently asked questions

How do I open a .lz4 file without installing lz4?

Drop it on this page in a current desktop browser. It is decompressed locally and you download the original file.

Does it open .tar.lz4 archives?

Yes. The archive is decompressed and unpacked together, and you can browse, preview and download the files or repack them as a ZIP.

Why does my .lz4 file not open?

It is probably not in the LZ4 frame format. Some applications store raw LZ4 blocks or use their own header, and those files are not supported.

Can I create .lz4 files here?

No. Compression to LZ4 is not supported.

Is there a size limit?

No fixed cap. The decompressed data is written to disk-backed browser storage, so the limit is the free space the browser can use.