borg-import-tar(1)

💖 borg-import-tar(1) 💖

okay bestie, so this is the manual page for borg-import-tar, part of the borg backup tool. it's the little sister of borg-export-tar and she's here to turn a tarball into a full-on Borg archive. let's get into it 🫶

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✨ NAME ✨

borg-import-tar — Create a backup archive from a tarball

no cap, that's the whole vibe. tar in, archive out 💅

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🌈 SYNOPSIS 🌈

borg [common options] import-tar [options] NAME TARFILE

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

This command creates a backup archive from a tarball. that's it, that's the job, and she does it flawlessly.

When giving - as path, Borg will read a tar stream from standard input. so like, pipe it in, she's ready 💫

By default (--tar-filter=auto) Borg will detect whether the file is compressed based on its file extension and pipe the file through an appropriate filter:

• .tar.gz or .tgz: gzip -d
• .tar.bz2 or .tbz: bzip2 -d
• .tar.xz or .txz: xz -d
• .tar.zstd, .tar.zst or .tzst: zstd (in-process)
• .tar.lz4: lz4 -d

For zstd, Borg decompresses in-process using libzstd instead of piping through an external program. The other formats are piped through the respective external filter program.

Alternatively, a --tar-filter program may be explicitly specified. It should read compressed data from stdin and output an uncompressed tar stream on stdout. yes bestie, you can bring your own filter.

Most documentation of borg create applies. Note that this command does not support excluding files. not supported, periodt. 🙈

--strip-components removes the specified number of leading path elements from the tar member names when creating the archive items. Members whose path has fewer or equally many elements are silently skipped. Hard link targets are stripped accordingly, symbolic link targets are left unchanged.

The path elements are counted after normalizing the member name the same way it is stored in the archive, so a leading ./ is not a path element. This differs from tar, which counts it: to import ./top/dir/file as dir/file, use --strip-components=1 here, while tar needs --strip-components=2. the way that tar counts differs... she's just built different, iykyk 😭

A --sparse option (as found in borg create) is not needed: sparse members in input tarballs (old GNU and PAX sparse formats) are read correctly and their holes are stored as deduplicated all-zero chunks. she handles it herself, main character energy 👑

About tar formats and metadata conservation or loss, please see borg export-tar.

import-tar reads these tar formats:

• BORG: borg specific (PAX-based)
• PAX: POSIX.1-2001
• GNU: GNU tar
• POSIX.1-1988 (ustar)
• UNIX V7 tar
• SunOS tar with extended attributes

To import multiple tarballs into a single archive, they can be simply concatenated (e.g. using "cat") into a single file, and imported with an --ignore-zeros option to skip through the stop markers between them. mash em together, she'll figure it out 🌸

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🌟 OPTIONS 🌟

See borg-common(1) for common options of Borg commands.

🎀 arguments 🎀

• NAME — specify the archive name
• TARFILE — input tar file. "-" to read from stdin instead.

💅 options 💅

• --tar-filter — filter program to pipe data through
• -s, --stats — print statistics for the created archive
• --list — output verbose list of items (files, dirs, ...)
• --filter STATUSCHARS — only display items with the given status characters
• --json — output stats as JSON (implies --stats)
• --ignore-zeros — ignore zero-filled blocks in the input tarball
• --strip-components NUMBER — Remove the specified number of leading path elements. Paths with fewer elements will be silently skipped.

🧚 Archive options 🧚

• --comment COMMENT — add a comment text to the archive
• --timestamp TIMESTAMP — manually specify the archive creation date/time (yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ss[(+|-)HH:MM] format, (+|-)HH:MM is the UTC offset, default: local time zone). Alternatively, give a reference file/directory.
• --chunker-params PARAMS — specify the chunker parameters: buzhash,CHUNK_MIN_EXP,CHUNK_MAX_EXP,HASH_MASK_BITS,WINDOW_SIZE or buzhash64,CHUNK_MIN_EXP,CHUNK_MAX_EXP,HASH_MASK_BITS,WINDOW_SIZE,NC_LEVEL or fastcdc,CHUNK_MIN_EXP,CHUNK_MAX_EXP,HASH_MASK_BITS,NC_LEVEL. default: the repository default (see borg repo-create), else fastcdc,19,23,21,2
• -C COMPRESSION, --compression COMPRESSION — select compression algorithm, see the output of the "borg help compression" command for details. Default: the repository default (see borg repo-create), else lz4.
• --digests ALGOS — compute these hash digests over the full content of each file and store them into the archive items. Comma-separated list of hash algorithm names, e.g. "blake3", or "none". default: none

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🔥 EXAMPLES 🔥

okay here's the receipts, copied exactly, character for character bestie:

# Export as an uncompressed tar archive
$ borg export-tar Monday Monday.tar

# Import an uncompressed tar archive
$ borg import-tar Monday Monday.tar

# Exclude some file types and compress using gzip
$ borg export-tar Monday Monday.tar.gz --exclude '*.so'

# Use a higher compression level with gzip
$ borg export-tar --tar-filter="gzip -9" Monday Monday.tar.gz

# Copy an archive from repoA to repoB
$ borg -r repoA export-tar --tar-format=BORG archive - | borg -r repoB import-tar archive -

# Export a tar, but instead of storing it on disk, upload it to a remote site using curl
$ borg export-tar Monday - | curl --data-binary @- https://somewhere/to/POST

# Remote extraction via 'tarpipe'
$ borg export-tar Monday - | ssh somewhere "cd extracted; tar x"

# Export sparse files (e.g. disk images) as sparse tar members (GNU sparse format 1.0)
$ borg export-tar --sparse disk-images disk-images.tar

👑 Archives transfer script 👑

Outputs a script that copies all archives from repo1 to repo2 (bash, because it uses process substitution). Remove the echo to actually run the commands instead of just printing them:

while read -r N I T
do
  echo "borg -r repo1 export-tar --tar-format=BORG aid:$I - | borg -r repo2 import-tar --timestamp=$T $N -"
done < <(borg -r repo1 repo-list --format='{name} {id} {time:%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S}{NL}')

Kept:

• archive name, archive timestamp
• archive contents (all items with metadata and data)

Lost:

• some archive metadata (like the original command line, execution time, etc.)

Please note:

• all data goes over that pipe, again and again for every archive
• the pipe is dumb, there is no data or transfer time reduction there due to deduplication
• maybe add compression
• pipe over ssh for remote transfer
• maybe add --sparse to the export-tar command, so runs of all-zero chunks travel as a compact sparse map instead of literal zeros

ngl that pipe is doing the absolute most with the absolute least 💀 she's just a pipe bestie, be nice to her.

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🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

borg-common(1)

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💜 Author 💜

The Borg Collective

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and that's the whole page!! this manual came out of the borg backup tool, dated 2026-10-07, and yes the title at the bottom is still borg-import-tar(1) because we keep it iconic 💖✨