So you tried to open a .rar file you downloaded on the Internet, or received from a colleague/friend via email. Then you get a weird error on your Mac, because the file couldn’t be opened.
The Best Free Software of 2020. They have different extensions, from RAR to ZIP to 7z and many more, and sometimes the program to open them costs you. It opens all of those and more. Bandizip is a free program archive manager tool for the Windows platform. It supports large and small archive formats and can handle the most known compression file formats like ZIP, RAR, ZIPX, 7z, etc.
It’s really disappointing. I’ve been there many times, since I use my MacBook Pro to communicate with others who are probably on a PC. In fact, I also ran into the same problem when I switched from PC to Mac a few years ago.
Luckily, I managed to fix it with an amazing app called The Unarchiver, the best RAR extractor app for Mac. Plus, it’s still free. Meanwhile, I also tested dozens of other applications on my Mac, and filtered those that are 100% free and easy to use and you can read more below.
NEW UPDATE
Hi there, Thanks for reading this article. It’s been two years since I first published this post. Things have changed a lot when it comes to unrar apps for Mac. I was hoping Apple macOS could add this feature to its built-in Archive Utility app, unfortunately, it seems that Apple macOS team doesn’t plan to do this. My MacBook Pro is now with the latest 10.13 High Sierra, and I have to rely on third-party apps to extract RAR files.
As for the best rar extractor app for Mac, the recommendation stays the same — The Unarchiver. It’s still free to download and use. However, it’s worth noting that the app has been acquired by MacPaw (the maker of CleanMyMac, an awesome Mac cleaning app) and is now part of the MacPaw family. You can read more from this press release.
Also, I just found a more powerful app called BetterZip 4 — which allows Mac users to not only extract many types of archives, but you can also use it to create archives or preview content of an archive without extracting. Those additional features are not available in The Unarchiver or Archive Utility. I recommend BetterZip to those of you who often need to handle a different kind of files on a PC and Mac. Note: BetterZip isn’t freeware ($24.95 for the paid version), but a free trial is offered. You can get BetterZip 4 from Setapp here.
What about the other apps listed below? I tried to check them now and then, just to make sure they’re usable and the information is accurate. But I find it so time-consuming because every year or so Apple releases a new version of macOS (to date, it’s High Sierra 10.13.2), those apps that fail to be updated often can’t run or malfunction. Therefore, I’d discourage you to check them out unless you are interested. That said, I’ll try my best to keep the content on this post as fresh as possible.
What is an RAR File?
RAR is a compressed file short for Roshal Archive; it’s a proprietary file format developed by Eugene Roshal, a genius software engineer. Simply put, a .rar file is like a big data container that holds a set of individual files and folders inside.
Why use RAR? Because it reduces the size of your files and folders while keeping all the content 100% intact. With a RAR, it’s much easier to store on removable media or transferred over the Internet.
According to this comparison image provided by Compression Ratings, RAR files achieve much higher compression, especially on multimedia files. They are also easier to split or to recover once corrupted than other alternatives like ZIP or 7Zip files.
How to Open an RAR Archive on Mac?
Unlike other archive files, for example, a ZIP archive can be directly created or extracted by using the default function on Mac (here’s a tutorial), a RAR file can only be opened using third-party software…which, unfortunately, Apple hasn’t built into the Archive Utility, yet.
That’s why there are plenty of third-party applications available on the Internet that claim to be able to do that. Some are dated, while some require you to pay.
Thanks to those smart, yet kind developers, we have quite a lot of free options to get the job done without taking a penny out of the pocket. I’ve tested many and here are the 10 best free apps that still work.
10 Free RAR Extractor Apps That Work on Mac
Note: Some of the apps below are open source, and the authors accept donations. If you find the one you use is really awesome, kindly show your appreciation. Hundreds of hours were spent to make that product work well.
1. The Unarchiver
The Unarchiver is my favorite. Like the name indicates, it unpacks almost any archive instantly without launching the app. The app is very powerful, even does what the built-in Archive Utility can’t — extracts RAR archives. It also supports handling filenames in foreign character sets.
2. B1 Free Archiever
Another great open source app, the B1 Free Archiver serves as an all-in-one program for managing file archives. As you can see from the screenshot above, this tool allows you to create, open and extract archives. It opens .rar, .zip, and 35 other file formats. Besides Mac, there are also versions for Windows, Linux, and Android.
3. UnRarX
UnRarX is a simple utility designed to expand .rar files and restore corrupted or missing archives with .par and .par2 files. It has an extraction function as well. To do this, simply open the program, drag your archive files into the interface, and UnRarX will unpack the content to the specified destination.
4. StuffIt Expander Mac
StuffIt Expander for Mac allows you to uncompress both Zip and RAR archives. I found the app very easy to use. Once the program is installed, you should see an icon (as shown on the top of the above screenshot). Click on it. Next select the file, specify the destination to store your extracted files, and you’re done.
5. MacPar deLuxe
Another great tool that can open RAR files, and do a lot beyond! Originally developed to recover missing or corrupted information by processing “par” and “par2” files, MacPAR deLuxe is able to unpack the data with its built-in unrar engine. If you are a Macintosh user who frequently downloads or uploads binary files, then most likely you’ll love this utility program. You can get it from its official site here.
6. iZip for Mac
iZip is another powerful yet effective tool built from the ground up for Mac users to compress/decompress, secure, and share files easily. It supports all kinds of archive formats including RAR, ZIP, ZIPX, TAR, and 7ZIP. To unzip a file, just drag and drop it into the software main interface. Another window will pop up with the extracted files. Super fast!
7. RAR Extractor Free
RAR Extractor Free is an app that specializes in extracting Rar, Zip, Tar, 7-zip, Gzip, Bzip2 files conveniently and safely. Once you download and launch the app, you’ll see a pop-up window that asks you to specify an “unarchive” location. To load your files, you’ll need to move to the top left and click “Open.”
8. SimplyRAR (Mac)
SimplyRAR is another awesome archiving app for Mac OS. As its name suggests, SimplyRAR is a simple to use program that makes archiving and unarchiving files a breeze. Open it by dropping the file into the application, choosing a compression method, and pulling the trigger. The downside of the app is that it will be difficult to get support from the developer, as it appears they’re no longer in business.
9. RAR Expander
RAR Expander (Mac) is a clean GUI utility for creating and expanding RAR archives. It supports single, multi-part or password-protected archives. It also features AppleScript support and includes example scripts to help you handle multiple archives at once.
10. Zipeg
Zipeg is also handy yet free. What I really like is its ability to preview an entire file before extracting it. It also supports password protected and multipart files. Note: To open the software, you’ll need to install the legacy Java SE 6 runtime (see this Apple support article).
What’s Your Favorite UnRAR Tool?
Does the recommended one help you extract or unzip your RAR files? Or do you find a better unarchiver app for Mac than the ones listed above? Let me know by leaving a quick comment below.
After installing the operating system, users usually don’t have enough programs for unpacking files. Such programs are named file archivers. Often, before the version of the OS Windows 10, users had to look for third-party programs to be able to unpack archives. In Windows 10 much has changed, ranging from the ability to use quality archivers from the application store and ending with a built-in explorer archiver.
In this article, we have selected five archivers for Windows 10. All the archivers that you need to download from official sites, without any problems, will suit users of the Windows 7 OS. And all applications installed from the store will be suitable only for the Windows 10 OS.
1. WinRAR.
WinRAR is a powerful program for operating the archives, since it allows you to operate with large archives. It supports all popular operating systems, starting with Windows and ending with Android. WinRAR remains so popular because even after the end of the trial period allows you to use all of its features.
You can download WinRAR and exploit it as WinRAR is free up to a 40-day period, after which it will start unobtrusively reminding that it would be worth buying a license: but it still works. If you don’t have the task of archiving and unarchiving data on an industrial scale, and you resort to archivers once in a blue moon, you may have any inconvenience from using an unregistered version of WinRAR.
Main features:
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- Supporting most common archive formats for decompression.
- Allows to encrypt the archive with a password, create a multi-volume and self-extracting archive.
- Adding additional data to restore corrupted archives in its own RAR format (it can work with archives that have lost integrity), which can be useful if you use it for long-term data storage.
2. 7-Zip.
The 7-Zip archiver is a free open-source archiver and the only free program for working with archives that we can safely recommend.
Almost any archive that you will find on the Internet, on old disks or somewhere else, you can unpack in 7-Zip, including RAR and ZIP, 7z own format, ISO and DMG images, ancient ARJ and much more (it’s far from being a full list).
In terms of the formats available for creating archives, the list is shorter, but sufficient for most purposes: 7z, ZIP, GZIP, XZ, BZIP2, TAR, WIM. At the same time, for archives 7z and ZIP, the password for the archive with encryption is supported, and for archives 7z – the creation of self-extracting archives. Working with 7-Zip shouldn’t cause any difficulties even for a new user: the interface of the program is similar to the usual file manager, the archiver also integrates with Windows (you can add files to the archive or unzip it using explorer’s context menu). You can download 7Zip on the official site.
3. HaoZip.
This is a free archiver, which allows you to open fifty different formats of compressed files. The application can create self-extracting containers, split libraries into parts and protect them with a password, keep the history of archiving and restore corrupted packed objects, contains the function of scanning suspicious files using online antivirus. When processing a large array of data, the utility uses the full potential of multi-core processors.HaoZip can extract information from 50 different types of archives, but only a few types of containers are available for compression – 7Z, ZIP, TAR. A common RAR format isn’t supported when creating libraries, this can be considered the main disadvantage of the utility.
It also has the availability of additional tools. Among them – the function of combining MP3-tracks, the converter of archives and the option of emulating optical drives.
The appearance of the application resembles the popular WinRAR archiver, it is possible to change the design of the interface through skins. The program menu is translated into different languages, but the help isn’t localized – it is only available in Chinese, it is not possible to change its language even for English.
4. Bandizip.
It is a utility for unpacking more than 30 kinds of compressed libraries, including RAR. Using Bandizip, you can create regular archives in the formats TGZ, TAR, ZIP, ISO, LSZ, 7Z, and also generate self-extracting containers, which can be extracted later without the help of third-party software. If desired, you can encode the contents of libraries using the modern algorithm AES 256 Bit. When processing data, the program uses all the cores of multiprocessor systems, which can significantly reduce the time to create large-sized containers.
The developers of the utility tried to make the interface of their product as convenient as possible – it was translated into different languages, you can extract objects from the archives by simply dragging the mouse into the specified folder, there is a function to preview the contents of the container.
Advanced Bandizip users respond positively to the methods of encoding the file names used in the program. In their opinion, Bandizip is one of the few archivers that correctly saves the names of objects even if then the archives will open in a different operating environment (for example, Linux).
5. IZArc.
Multifunctional archiver IZArc allows you to fully work with packed files of various formats, can repair damaged libraries and open protected archives. The utility allows to perform additional actions with compressed files – add new objects, search, view and write comments. The program supports multi-volume libraries and is able to create automatically unpacking executable files.
The main functions are controlled from the context menu of the explorer.
Best Windows 10 Rar Extractor
The special function of IzArk – the ability to work with images of optical discs created in the popular formats ISO, BIN, NRG, CDI. And, if necessary, you can re-encode one type of image into another. Such an option, as a rule, is found only in specialized software.
Main functions:
- free archiver;
- opening of a huge number of compressed library formats (7-ZIP, RAR, ZIP and others);
- support for 256-bit data encryption algorithm;
- reanimation of damaged archives;
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• work with images of optical media.