20 MB TAR sample
A TAR file of exactly 20,971,520 bytes. It is a valid Tape archive file, generated by this site. Compare its checksum and test it with the parser used by your application. Use it wherever you need a 20 MB sample, test or dummy TAR file.
Download
sample-tar-20mb.tar
20 MB20,971,520 bytes
Download 20 MB TARCreated in your browser in a few seconds, then checked against the SHA-256 checksum. No sign-up.
- Type
- application/x-tar
- SHA-256
de58d87f275925bb9e2827083b5751ba71491abce34e41f32dfb3b4a70c030cb- Delivery
- Created in your browser from static generator assets (how it works).
What is in this file
A ustar archive with a README and payload.bin, 20,968,960 pseudo-random bytes, followed by the two zero blocks that end every tar archive.
| Entries | 2 (README.txt, payload.bin) |
|---|---|
| Format | POSIX ustar |
| Compression | None |
| Block size | 512 bytes |
First bytes of the file
The first 64 bytes of sample-tar-20mb.tar as a hex dump: offset, bytes, then the same bytes as text. The TAR signature is 75 73 74 61 72 at offset 257.
00000000 52 45 41 44 4d 45 2e 74 78 74 00 00 00 00 00 00 |README.txt......|
00000010 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |................|
00000020 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |................|
00000030 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |................|Preview
TAR files cannot be shown in a browser. Download the file and open it in an application that reads TAR, such as tar on Linux, macOS and Windows.
Where 20 MB matters
A 20,971,520-byte file: right at the default attachment limit of Outlook, and just under the 25 MB ceilings of Gmail and GitHub web uploads. These are the default limits a file of this size is useful for testing:
| System | Limit | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Outlook | 20 MB of attachments by default for internet mail accounts | This file is right at the limit; add a second attachment and it is exceeded. |
| Gmail | 25 MB per message | Under the limit, although email encoding adds about a third in transit. |
| GitHub web uploads | 25 MiB per file added through the browser | Accepted. Pushing with Git allows larger files. |
| Cloudflare Pages assets | 25 MiB per file | The largest round size that can be served as a static asset. |
| Amazon API Gateway | 10 MB payload | Rejected; the upload has to go directly to object storage. |
| ASP.NET Core (Kestrel) | About 28.6 MB request body by default | Accepted with room for the multipart overhead. |
Use this file for
- Measuring download speed from your own server or CDN
- Testing container and package pipelines
- Testing archive extraction on servers
Testing notes for TAR
- There is no index, so listing the contents means reading the whole archive.
- Like ZIP, tar entries can contain absolute paths or "../", and can be symbolic links. Validate before extracting.
Technical details
| File name | sample-tar-20mb.tar |
|---|---|
| Format | TAR (Tape archive) |
| Extension | .tar |
| MIME type | application/x-tar |
| Size | 20,971,520 bytes (20 MB) |
| Kind | Binary |
| Signature | 75 73 74 61 72 at offset 257 |
| SHA-256 | de58d87f275925bb9e2827083b5751ba71491abce34e41f32dfb3b4a70c030cb |
| Created | 2026-10-23 |
| Validation | See the listed size and SHA-256. Small downloads are checked in the browser; verify streamed downloads manually. A hash match does not prove parser compatibility. |
| Preview | Not available for this file; details only |
| Source | Generated in your browser by this site's generator; not copied from elsewhere |
| Licence | Free to use, modify and redistribute (terms) |
| Category | Archives |
Check the stated structure and checksum against your application requirements. As with any download, scan the file with your own security tools before opening it. How files are made and checked
Verify your copy
This file is created in your browser, so it has no direct URL for curl or wget. The generator is designed to produce reproducible bytes. After saving, compare the checksum with the SHA-256 value above.
sha256sum sample-tar-20mb.tar # Linux
shasum -a 256 sample-tar-20mb.tar # macOSOn Windows, run Get-FileHash sample-tar-20mb.tar -Algorithm SHA256 in PowerShell. For scripts and pipelines, save the file once and keep your own copy.
Related files
Questions about this file
- Is this file exactly 20 MB?
- Yes. It is 20,971,520 bytes, which is 20 MB in the binary units that operating systems and server limits use (1 KB = 1,024 bytes).
- What is inside the 20 MB TAR file?
- A ustar archive with a README and payload.bin, 20,968,960 pseudo-random bytes, followed by the two zero blocks that end every tar archive.
- Why is there no 1 KB TAR sample?
- A tar archive is built from 512-byte blocks and ends with two empty blocks, so the smallest archive containing a README and a payload is larger than 1 KB.