Files with rar extension are compressed archives made using any of the RAR or WinRAR compression utilities. Along with ZIP format, RAR format is one of the most common formats used and as such can be extracted by almost every archiving tool.

Regardless of the compressed file's format, you can unpack more than 40 different formats, including CAB, ARJ, LZH, TAR, GZ, ACE, UUE, BZ2, JAR, ISO, RAR, Zip or 7Z. Just double-click the icon and the content of the file will appear on the screen. Then, choose whether to unpack it or run the files without having to unpack it previously. RAR Extractor not only unpacks your RAR files, but it also lets you peek inside and preview images, documents and even emails. Fine-tuned for speed, RAR Extractor works quickly without consuming a lot of memory or hard drive space. WinZip opens RAR files. Use WinZip, the world's most popular zip file utility, to open and extract content from RAR files and other compressed file formats. A rar file is a collection of files & folders wrapped into a single package and compressed using the Roshal Archive algorithm. It was first released by Russian software engineer Eugene Roshal in 1993. It purports to have better compression speed, encryption and error handling than the ZIP format.

There is one other file type using
the RAR file extension!

.rar - Java JCA Resource Adapter module

Software that open rar file

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RAR file extension- WinRAR RAR compressed archive

What is rar file? How to open rar files?

Rar File Opener For Windows 10

File type specification:

rar file icon:

File extension rar is most likely best known for for its use for a compressed archive format created by RAR as well as it's successor WinRAR file archiver.

The original program was available for MS-DOS only, but the never versions are available for every version of Windows and even for some other platforms, such as Linux or Mac.

Similar to other compressed file archive formats, .rar files are data containers, that store one or several files and folders in compressed form. Compressed data can be in one single file or multiple splitted files (eg. archive.rar, archvie.r01,archive.r02 etc.).

In WinRAR you can split a huge archive to a few smaller files, which are called volumes. If you need to unpack rar multi-volumes, place all them to the same folder and start extraction from the first volume.

RAR archives can be also password protected.

MIME types used for WinRar rar archives:
application/rar
application/x-rar-compressed

Updated: September 4, 2020

The default software associated to open rar file:

Company or developer:
win.rar GmbH

A file compression and archive utility. Along with WinZip and 7-Zip is one of the most common compression programs for Windows. Its native format is as the name implies RAR and uses rar file extension.

WinRAR is a powerful archive manager. It can backup your data and reduce the size of email attachments, decompress RAR, ZIP and other files downloaded from Internet and create new archives in RAR and ZIP file format.

WinRAR is also able to unpack CAB, ARJ, LZH, TAR, GZ, ACE, UUE, BZ2, JAR, ISO, 7Z, Z archives. It consistently makes smaller archives than the competition, saving disk space and transmission costs. WinRAR offers a graphic interactive interface utilizing mouse and menus as well as the command line interface.

Rar File Extractor Freeware

Company or developer:
win.rar GmbH

RAR for Mac is command line tool used to create and extract RAR archives.

Company or developer:
win.rar GmbH

Rar for Linux is command line utility used to create and extract RAR archives.

Related articles:

Help how to open:

Most modern file archivers support the RAR format on all operating systems. The default program for RAR archive format is the WinRAR or RAR for Mac.

How to convert:

You can extract *.rar archives and repack RAR format to different archive format simply by extracting the contents of the archive and compressing them after to different format.

Find conversions from rar file:

Find converter to rar file type:

File identification strings:

HEX code: 52 61 72 21 1A 07 00
ASCII code: Rar!

List of software applications associated to the .rar file extension

Recommended software programs are sorted by OS platform (Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android etc.)
and possible program actions that can be done with the file: like open rar file, edit rar file, convert rar file, view rar file, play rar file etc. (if exist software for corresponding action in File-Extensions.org's database).

Hint:
Click on the tab below to simply browse between the application actions, to quickly get a list of recommended software, which is able to perform the specified software action, such as opening, editing or converting rar files.

Software that open rar file - WinRAR RAR compressed archive

Programs supporting the exension rar on the main platforms Windows, Mac, Linux or mobile. Click on the link to get more information about listed programs for open rar file action.

Microsoft Windows:

Main software associated with rar file by default:
WinRAR
Other suggested software:
7-zip
WinZip
B1 Free Archiver
ALZip
PeaZip
IZArc
FilZip

Apple macOS / Mac OS X:

Main software associated with rar file by default:
RAR for Mac
Other suggested software:
sArchiver
StuffIt Expander for Mac
The Unarchiver
ALZip for Mac
Decompressor

Linux/Unix:

Main software associated with rar file by default:
RAR for Linux
Other suggested software:
Xarchiver

Rar File Opener

Rar File Opener Online