I have a thumbdrive with a .tar backup directory. Do I need to extract each file in the directlory (e.g. downloads, documents, photos, etc.) seperately to their folders and install with .tar or is there a way to install the entire directory at once? How do I do this with .tar?
tar is just compressed. Like a .zip. You can extract all files at once.
Tar files aren’t compressed. (I am sure you know this. 
)
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In the case of Dolphin, Nautilus, etc. You can just copy or drag the files and folders over to where you want them. Which does make some things easier. Especially with a weird layout like absolute path names from root.
The big window managers that come with file managers that handle archive files, definitely makes this easier. If the tar file has ./home/$USER/ in front of all the files, it is just some extra clicking to get into the files you want. Or maybe the tar was created relatively, and ./Documents, ./Pictures, etc. are at top level in the tarball. In which case you would select them all.
If you are going this through one of these file/archive managers, especially for a /home backup/restore, make sure viewing hidden files is enabled!
Or on the command line route has and will always be there. (Which doesn’t care about hidden files.)
To view the files: tar tvf example.tar
And extract: tar xvf example.tar optionally with -C <DEST_DIR>
The command line route could have some extra steps to get them where you want, depending how the tarball was created. You can do it through the tar command itself, or extract then move/copy.
Sorry, I guess I meant ‘archive’.
(while tar balls are often compressed - when .tar.gz, etc, which I might have sorta guessed may have been the case here. Supposing ‘tar’ may be read as ‘*tar*’.)
In whatever case the correction/clarification is fair. 