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How to Open a RAR File

A .rar is a compressed archive holding one or more files. Because the format belongs to one vendor, Windows 10 and macOS cannot open it out of the box the way they open a ZIP; Windows 11 extracts it after its late-2023 update.

.rar
Open it on this site

Why it will not open

  • Windows 10 and macOS do not include RAR support. Windows 11 gained native extraction in its late-October 2023 update, but not for password-protected archives; elsewhere, double-clicking gets you nothing until you install something.
  • Compression is proprietary. WinRAR's owner publishes the decompression algorithm but not the compression side, which is why free tools can extract .rar files but generally cannot create them.
  • Multi-part archives confuse things further — a set named .part1.rar, .part2.rar and so on has to be complete before any of it will extract.

How to open it

In the browser, nothing to install

  1. 1 Drop the .rar into the archive extractor on this site. It runs 7-Zip inside your browser and reads RAR 4 and RAR 5; the file list appears at once.
  2. 2 If the archive has a password, type it in. Archives that hide their file names until then open too.
  3. 3 Nothing is uploaded. Multi-part sets (.part1.rar and so on) are not supported there; use 7-Zip for those.

Windows

  1. 1 7-Zip is free, open source, and extracts RAR including multi-part sets.
  2. 2 Windows 11 (22H2 or later, updated since late October 2023) extracts RAR natively — right-click and choose Extract All before installing anything. Password-protected archives are not supported.
  3. 3 WinRAR itself works and is the reference implementation, but is paid software after its trial.

macOS and Linux

  1. 1 On macOS, The Unarchiver is free and handles RAR along with most other archive formats.
  2. 2 On Linux, install unrar or p7zip — most distributions package both.
  3. 3 From a terminal, unrar x archive.rar extracts into the current directory.

Multi-part archives

If you have file.part1.rar through file.part5.rar, put them all in one folder and open only the first. The tool finds the rest. Extracting will fail with a truncation error if any part is missing.

Password-protected archives

RAR supports encryption, and a password prompt means exactly that — no tool can bypass it. Note that RAR can encrypt the file names too, in which case you cannot even see the contents list. The extractor on this site asks for the password and opens both kinds.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Can I open a RAR file online without installing anything?
Yes. The archive extractor on this site runs 7-Zip inside your browser, so the archive is not uploaded, and it takes the password if there is one. On Windows 11 (22H2 or later, updated since late October 2023), File Explorer's Extract All also works, except for password-protected archives. Some web-based extractors upload the archive to their server, so check before using one with anything private. Multi-part sets need a desktop tool such as 7-Zip.
What is the difference between RAR and ZIP?
Both compress files. ZIP is an open format supported everywhere; RAR is proprietary, usually compresses a little better, and supports recovery records and multi-part splitting.
Why does extraction say the archive is corrupt?
Usually an incomplete download or a missing part of a multi-part set. Re-download it and check the file size against the source before assuming the archive itself is damaged.