

After explaining it’s an archive format, I always come back to recommending these utilities frequently to be able to open them, and if there is a better free solution for Mac OS X I haven’t found it yet.7-Zip Download 4.3.5 (macOS) Is 7Zip Available for MacħZip is a tool designed for Windows. I get asked on a somewhat regular basis “What is a RAR file and how do I use it?” from both Windows and Mac users. Rar files are often thought of as part of the Windows world, but Mac users frequently come across them too. The Unarchiver, seen below, can be associated with many other package file types as well as rar archives.

You can also just open the rar file and explore the archive without uncompressing it. rar archives on your Mac, allowing you to just double-click on any rar file to extract it in the future. For example, if the rar file is in the ~/Downloads/ folder, that’s where the extracted rar file contents will be located as well.Īfter either Unarchiver or UnRarX has been run, it will now be associated with. The unrar’ed contents will be placed into the same directory as the rar file originated. UnRarX has a simple interface for extractions as well, but is limited to rar documents:


UnRarX is predominately a rar application with par2 restoration abilities, whereas UnArchiver will open rar files and many other file formats as well. The two unrar apps we’re discussing here the free UnArchiver or UnRarX tools.
