About Empty Archive Files
Empty archives are a classic edge case: backup scripts, CI pipelines, package installers, upload validators and extraction libraries all need to handle them without crashing. This tool produces genuinely valid empty files in each format, not zero-byte fakes: a TAR made of its two end-of-archive blocks, gzip, bzip2 and XZ streams that decompress to nothing or to an empty TAR, and a 7-Zip archive with no entries. Each was checked against the reference tools, including tar, gzip, bzip2, xz and 7-Zip. Pick a format and download it instantly.
How to Use It
- 01
Pick a format
Choose TAR, TAR.GZ, GZ, BZ2, TAR.BZ2, XZ, TAR.XZ or 7Z.
- 02
Create
Press Create Archive.
- 03
Use it
Feed it to your extractor, script or upload form to test empty-archive handling.
Questions
Are these real archives or just empty files?
Real archives. Each one opens without errors in the standard tools and contains no files.
Why is an empty TAR 1,024 bytes?
A TAR archive ends with two 512-byte blocks of zeros. An empty archive is just that end marker.
Where's the empty ZIP?
Use the Empty ZIP File tool, which can also add an empty folder.
Is anything uploaded?
No. The archive is generated in your browser.