GMail: you can't send tar.gz directories on Linux

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Reproduce:
Gmail ingeniously refuses to send .tar.gzed folders from a linux computer,
because, in linux, directories usually have the executable bit turned on.
This makes gmail refuse to send "executables".
Even .tar.gz inside a .tar.gz are refused.

Expected result:
Mental sanity

Actual result:
/me forced to upload personal data to doubtful file-sharing sites full of
pornographic ads.

Collateral effects:
this really freaks me out.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by tac...@gmail.com on 21 Sep 2008 at 4:59

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I just came up against this error. My .tar file with 2 .tar.gz inside it full 
of text
files was refused by gmail as an "executable"

Original comment by clearlin...@gmail.com on 9 Jan 2009 at 8:00

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I have the same problem from a Windows Vista pc. Trying to send 9 .tex files as 
a
.tar.gz archive, and gmail says it contains an excecutional.

Original comment by bartvero...@gmail.com on 21 Apr 2009 at 1:47

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This is horrible. I cannot use an email service that does not allow .tar.gz 
files to
be sent. Seriously. I hope Google reconsiders their policy.

Original comment by giacom...@gmail.com on 22 Sep 2009 at 4:02

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Its not only for sending but also receiving! In that case it's even more 
annoying as
you are not even aware of this! Gmail should at least tell me, as recipient, 
that
they just blocked a mail (due to its attachment) …

Original comment by bilh...@gmail.com on 11 Dec 2009 at 2:27

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@bilharz - I suppose the original sender does get an error message returned? 
Still, I
agree that Gmail should notify the receiver as well...

Original comment by bartvero...@gmail.com on 11 Dec 2009 at 4:20

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4 pdf's in tar.gz were rejected too :(

Original comment by vladimir...@gmail.com on 20 Feb 2010 at 9:26

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This is simply the most annoying thing I've had to deal with. I spent 20 
minutes trying to find a exe in a huge 
tar.gz file I was trying to send to a client. Luckily I decided to google this.

tar/tar.gz needs to be allowed.

Original comment by Don.Ma...@gmail.com on 15 Mar 2010 at 4:16

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I understand the desire to protect users, but many non-malicious files are 
being caught too. And by zipping the file up twice the filter was bypassed 
anyway. Please reconsider this "feature".

Original comment by sec...@ichi2.net on 12 Jul 2010 at 2:52

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I tried to attach a tar.gz file to this comment but Google wouldn't let me.  
All I wanted was a Pepsi damn it!

Original comment by hansokse...@gmail.com on 27 Sep 2010 at 8:05

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the same problem here ...

Original comment by Andreas....@gmail.com on 10 Nov 2010 at 4:27

Attachments:

• NPB3.0.tar.gz

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[deleted comment]

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over a year later and this is still a problem!? wtf google?!

Original comment by liner...@gmail.com on 13 Jan 2011 at 4:12

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This is ridiculous... can we at least get a setting to override this?

Original comment by JDHa...@gmail.com on 11 Feb 2011 at 8:08

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Fix it Google. Don't be evil.

Original comment by nofun...@gmail.com on 8 Mar 2011 at 11:24

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I just spent days and who knows how much time trying to figure out if my 
freelance programmer was actually "trying" to send me the code, or if he was 
procrastinating. Finally, I had him send the tarball to a non-gmail address (a 
friend of mine's actually because I exclusively use gmail). Voila, it worked. 
Then I googled this to figure out wtf happened. What Linux moron would set 
.tar.gz to run as an executable by default anyway?

Original comment by j...@ajaxkc.com on 16 Mar 2011 at 5:35

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This should probably read "You can't send or receive .tar.gz files" because it 
is OS independent. 

Original comment by j...@ajaxkc.com on 16 Mar 2011 at 5:36

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sorry but this is fucked up, you really should change this.
even, why blocking files aniway, why not simply warn the user(maybe with some 
online virus scan)

Original comment by bimbo...@gmail.com on 24 Mar 2011 at 6:54

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Rename your file.
If name is foo.tar.gz change it to foo.jpg then tell receiver to rename again 
to foo.tar.gz

Original comment by tmcloure...@gmail.com on 15 Apr 2011 at 9:15

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> Rename your file.
> If name is foo.tar.gz change it to foo.jpg then
> tell receiver to rename again to foo.tar.gz

This is great in Windows which only looks at the file extension to determine 
the file type. However, Linux actually looks into the file for determining the 
file type and isn't fooled by changing three letters of the file name.

Original comment by birgit.vera.schmidt@gmail.com on 20 Apr 2011 at 8:10

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Agreed, why should I have to switch to using zip just to send some files vi 
email...

Original comment by barker1...@gmail.com on 6 May 2011 at 4:37

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wow still an issue..  how retarded.

Original comment by anomaly...@gmail.com on 26 May 2011 at 7:10

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In MacOSX Mail using google mail server, the message completely disappear!. I 
must re-write same 50-line message three times. I finally know that the error 
when I write message on Web. But .tar file can be sent. What a funny!. 

Original comment by jdlee.se...@gmail.com on 9 Aug 2011 at 3:39

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i just learned of this today, as students were trying to submit an assignment.
they actually emailed my university address, which forwards to GMail.

just as i was growing fond of the near-instanteneous search in larger volumes
of email, in my view being unable to receive .tgz attachments is a show-stopper.

also, i fail to understand the reasoning: .zip archives are fine?

Original comment by stephan....@gmail.com on 29 Sep 2011 at 9:48

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The reasoning is that tar stores directories with Unix permissions, including 
the x permission flag. This is the 'execute' flag, and Gmail does not allow to 
post executables. Gmail doesn't check if your file is a directory, even though 
x for a directory does something completely different.

Zip doesn't store Unix permissions.

Original comment by benruyl@gmail.com on 30 Sep 2011 at 8:44

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But if you rename it in .txt gmail excepts it. What a world... 

Original comment by pvol...@googlemail.com on 20 Apr 2012 at 12:57

Attachments:

• test.txt

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dropbox here i come!!!

Original comment by corey.co...@gmail.com on 2 May 2012 at 2:54

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This issue still exists. On the bright side sending a .tar.bz2 seems to work 
which is less janky than using a fake/mismatched extension.

Original comment by cpbu...@gmail.com on 16 Oct 2012 at 8:26

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This is the most annoying bug with a Google service I've heard of in quite some 
time.

Actually, if we had an IT-department in-house and I'd run into a message 
forbidding my to send gzipped tar files, I'd ask them whether they've gone 
completely mad.

I can't believe that
a) it's still set to "New" even though it can be reproduced easily in about 10 
seconds,
b) in _four_ years no one at Google bothered to comment in here and
c) that so-called "Security Policy" can be easily bypassed by using bz2.

I'm at a loss of words.

Original comment by a...@die-softwaremanufaktur.com on 9 Feb 2013 at 6:27

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I'm so glad this is well documented on google's policy page...  WTF!  my server 
sends me logs gziped.  It works fine with single files in the gzip but I just 
wrote a script that returns several logs at once and gmail rejects it...  
trying bzip now.

Original comment by orphan.s...@gmail.com on 26 Jun 2013 at 10:04

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Reporting in:  it takes it as a tar.bz2 .  Their message should just say that 
in the first place.  Thanks for wasting my time Google!

Original comment by orphan.s...@gmail.com on 26 Jun 2013 at 10:09

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Surely this bug is some kind of personal joke the devs are having with each 
other.  Nothing else really explains the retardation involved.  Blocking a 
.tar.gz but allowing a .tar.bz2 with identical content?  Really?  And the fact 
that it's nearly 5 years old and yet to even be triaged.

Google: take some *pride* in your work.  This is embarrassing.

Original comment by anomaly...@gmail.com on 27 Jun 2013 at 4:11

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Yes this is quite retarded, specially since i don't get ANY notification that 
mail actually has not been sent. I've almost told the person I was mailing 
tar.gz to that he was stupid... he isn't, decision to drop the file without 
notification is. This could actually be the drop I needed to finally stop using 
gmail. 

Original comment by r.dav...@gmail.com on 23 Sep 2013 at 6:41

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Adding my votes, since I use .gz extensions all the time.  Google, please just 
ask the NSA if you can support this feature, they'll probably let you.

Thanks,

Original comment by r...@evaluatorgroup.com on 15 Oct 2013 at 5:25

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[deleted comment]

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Just encountered this problem trying to send a tar.gz created on a Mac.  Please 
fix.

Original comment by lthar...@gmail.com on 8 May 2014 at 7:49

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[deleted comment]

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This is ridicules Google. This has been a problem for 5 years and you haven’t 
even commented on it. It looks like you don't even care

Original comment by vdu...@gmail.com on 9 May 2014 at 7:16

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I think they need to put the 'beta' tag back on gmail until this is fixed

Original comment by anomaly...@gmail.com on 9 May 2014 at 7:21

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At least it was easily fooled by renaming it file.targz.

Google you so silly, you know you use files like this internally all the time. 

Original comment by chrisl...@gmail.com on 12 Jun 2014 at 6:11

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I tried tarring in two ways.. using the Commandline and using the GUI .
So in command line you write tar -cvf "tar.gzfile" "FoldertoCompress: it gives 
you a tar.gz file but with permissions set as follows:
rw-------

Then if you try the GUI right click on the directory and say Compress it 
creates a tar.gz with permissions set as follows:
rw-rw-r--

The 2nd one got accepted, while the first rejected, so I guess Google s algo 
checks the file permission, so for ppl using only Command line, you need to 
make it at least rw-rw-r--.  Btw a related qn, what do the blocks of r/w/x 
denote. like which groups of users??

Original comment by ajayrama...@gmail.com on 19 Jun 2014 at 9:21

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r - read
w - write
x - execute

The first group of three is 'owner', second is 'group', third is 'user'. So: 

rw------- : owner can read and write, others nothing; 
rw-rw-r-- : owner and group can read and write, others can only read.

Original comment by mindboos...@gmail.com on 19 Jun 2014 at 9:36

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I just had the same problem, but realized that I'd created the .tar.gz file 
without the 'z' option to tar. Google should update the error message to 
reflect the actual case, and not some nonsense about an executable file. 

Also, for me with Ubuntu 14.04, tar -cfvz from the command line naturally 
produces the "rw-rw-r--" permissions.

Original comment by coulter...@gmail.com on 22 Jun 2014 at 2:08

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I have the same problem. Please fix it

Original comment by amelvill...@gmail.com on 11 Nov 2014 at 8:10

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The strange thing for me is that I've been sending and receiving tar.bz files 
with my gmail for a decade now. All of the sudden, it won't let me. I need this 
fixed. 

Original comment by lisa.h...@gmail.com on 16 Dec 2014 at 12:51

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I found that this problem happens when I accidentally create a tar file 
(without gzip) but call it *.tar.gz.  So, "tar cvf xyz.tar.gz" triggers it.

Original comment by dstah...@gmail.com on 17 Dec 2014 at 1:56