To unzip, double-click on the file to extract it to the same location. All you need to do is multi-select the files, right-click, and choose Compress from the menu to create a zip file. Creating a zip file is much easier though since the Mac does this natively. You can also download and use WinZip Mac for free for 45 days, but you'll need to pay to use it after. If you only need to create rar files occasionally, you can use an online tool like CloudConvert which is free for up to 25 conversions per day. It can't create a rar file, unlike more sophisticated programs like WinZip. While The Unarchiver is a handy app for opening compressed files, that's all it's good for. The individual files can now be moved, copied, uploaded, or shared.

The rar format maintains the same file names, so if they're image or video files, those names will be exactly what they were before compression. The files in the rar archive will now appear in a regular folder on the Mac. If Step 3 doesn't work, right-click on the file, hover over Open With, and select The Unarchiver from the list. Cross-platform (Linux, macOS, Windows), full-featured but user-friendly alternative to WinRar, WinZip and similar general purpose archive manager applications, open and extract 200+ archive formats: 001, 7Z, ACE (), ARC, ARJ, BR, BZ2, CAB, DMG, GZ, ISO, LHA, PAQ, PEA, RAR (), TAR, UDF, WIM, XZ, ZIP, ZIPX, ZST. As such, it’s still important to know how to handle RAR files.Open The Unarchiver app and select Rar Archive under Archive Formats.Ĭlick on the Extraction tab and choose a destination folder for the extracted archive.ĭouble-click on the rar file on your Mac and it should immediately extract the contents into the chosen destination folder. The 7-Zip format is one popular option, but it’s far from the standard. That said, we’ve come a long way since the days of ZIP and RAR, and we now have better ways to compress, encrypt, and transfer files.

The RAR format was created to address some flaws in the ZIP format and comes with several benefits: smaller file sizes, the ability to split a RAR into multiple chunks, and error recovery.

RAR stands for Roshal ARchive, named after Eugene Roshal, the Russian software engineer who created the format. That way, you only have to put one file up for download (or attach one file to an email), and receivers only need to download one file, instead of many separate ones. Both are 'archive' file formats meant for compressing many individual files into one single file. If you already know this, or if you just don’t care, feel free to skip down to the next section for the actual instructions.Ī RAR file is similar to a ZIP file.

Download unzip rar files