You can extract RAR archives on macOS using The Unarchiver: this app created by MacPaw is light, fast and free forever. It can replace WinRAR to unpack files in .rar format on your MacBook, iMac or any other Mac, as Apple doesn’t have a native program for that.
RAR was created by Russian Eugene Roshal, a software engineer. This file format is proprietary, but the company RARLabs allows other companies to create programs to extract RAR at no cost – this is the case of The Unarchiver on Mac. See how to use:
How to open .rar file on Mac
- On your Mac, open the Mac App Store;
- Search for The Unarchiver;
- Click “Get” and then “Install”;
- Enter your Apple ID password if prompted by the App Store. You can also download it from the official Unarchiver website;
- Right click on your .rar file;
- Follow the path “Open With” > “The Unarchiver”;
- In the window that opens, click on “Extract”;
- Open the folder with the unzipped files;
Next time, you can simply double-click the .rar file to unzip it.
Can I choose where the unzipped .rar files are located?
By default, Unarchiver will unzip it into the same folder as the .rar file. You can choose this destination by right-clicking on the .rar file and selecting one of these options:
- Unarchive to Current Folder: the files will be unzipped in the same folder as the .rar file;
- Unarchive to Desktop: the files will be placed on the Desktop;
- Unarchive to…: You can choose the destination folder.
I double click but the .rar doesn’t open on Mac, what to do?
In most cases, Unarchiver will become the default application for .rar files when you perform the above procedure.
However, if you already had an application associated with the .rar format (such as VLC), you will need to follow the steps below to make Unarchiver the default:
- Press Command + Spacebar and start typing “unarchiver” ;
- Click on The Unarchiver app;
- In the Preferences window, enable the RAR Archive option.
How to open .rar file divided into parts (r00, r01, r02…)?
To unzip in this case, it’s simple:
- Put all parts of the file in the same folder (or the process will give an error);
- Double-click the file with the .r00 extension to extract all contents.
Unarchiver will automatically detect the other parts of the file to join them and unzip them. WinRAR lets you compress files and divide them into parts, which receive the extensions .r00, .r01, .r02 and so on.
How to convert a RAR file to ZIP on Mac?
- Install The Unarchiver following the steps above;
- Double-click the RAR file to unzip it;
- Find the folder with the unzipped files, right-click on it and click Compress.
The folder will be saved in ZIP format, which is natively supported on macOS (and Windows).
The Unarchiver opens which file formats?
Unarchiver works with compressed files in RAR, ZIP, 7-zip, Tar, Gzip, Bzip2 and others, as well as ISO and BIN disc images – check out the full list.
Is there a version of WinRAR for Mac?
Yes, and it’s called RAR for Linux & Mac, but maybe you don’t want to use it: it only works via the command line, that is, it requires Terminal mastery because it doesn’t have a graphical interface. There are better alternatives for opening .rar files on macOS, like The Unarchiver we mentioned above.
