gnu-tar

brew install gnu-tar v1.35 GPL-3.0-or-later

GNU tar — full-featured tar archiving utility with advanced features beyond POSIX tar.

Why you might care

macOS ships with BSD tar; gnu-tar adds GNU extensions (sparse file support, incremental backups, --xattrs, better compression handling). Use it if scripts or archives depend on GNU tar flags. It's a drop-in replacement available as 'gtar' to avoid shadowing the system tar.

Alternatives

bsdtar libarchive tar

24.3k

30-day installs · #210

74.6k

90-day · #218

318.5k

365-day · #204

Caveats

GNU "tar" has been installed as "gtar".
If you need to use it as "tar", you can add a "gnubin" directory
to your PATH from your bashrc like:

    PATH="$HOMEBREW_PREFIX/opt/gnu-tar/libexec/gnubin:$PATH"

Blurb generated by claude-haiku-4-5 on today.

Raw metadata

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  "aliases": [],
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  ],
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    "archiver",
    "file-utility"
  ],
  "caveats": "GNU \"tar\" has been installed as \"gtar\".\nIf you need to use it as \"tar\", you can add a \"gnubin\" directory\nto your PATH from your bashrc like:\n\n    PATH=\"$HOMEBREW_PREFIX/opt/gnu-tar/libexec/gnubin:$PATH\"\n",
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  "license": "GPL-3.0-or-later",
  "llm_generated_at": "2026-06-20T23:43:25+00:00",
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  "name": "gnu-tar",
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  "one_liner": "GNU tar \u2014 full-featured tar archiving utility with advanced features beyond POSIX tar.",
  "optional_dependencies": [],
  "rank_30d": 210,
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  "raw_hash": "6c1a3bea3a153e39",
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  "ruby_source_path": "Formula/g/gnu-tar.rb",
  "tap": "homebrew/core",
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  "version_head": "HEAD",
  "version_stable": "1.35",
  "versioned_formulae": [],
  "why_use_this": "macOS ships with BSD tar; gnu-tar adds GNU extensions (sparse file support, incremental backups, --xattrs, better compression handling). Use it if scripts or archives depend on GNU tar flags. It\u0027s a drop-in replacement available as \u0027gtar\u0027 to avoid shadowing the system tar."
}

gnu-tar

Why you might care

Categories

Alternatives

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Caveats