What will read a rar file

Most RAR files won't have a password protecting them; they're used to store images, documents, videos, or whatever type of file the author wanted.

Another time a RAR file might be useful is when a friend has a long list of files they want to share with you, like photos, for example. Instead of having you download every single image file individually, your friend can first compile the photos into a RAR file and then share just that one file with you.

Once you open a RAR file, you can extract the data from the inside and then use the files like you would any other file on you computer. Windows computers don't have a baked-in ability to open RAR files. If you double-click or double-tap a RAR file without having specific software installed to open it, you'll probably see one of the following messages: "Windows cannot open this file" or "How do you want to open this type of file.

The only problem with using WinRAR is that it's not free! Before you run off and buy it, please know that there are plenty of free RAR openers that can do the exact same thing but at zero cost. Of all the un-RAR tools out there, 7-Zip is probably the best one. After installing 7-Zip, set it up to automatically associate itself with RAR files so that, going forward, you'll be able to just open a RAR file from anywhere on your computer and it'll open automatically in 7-Zip.

A little disk icon will appear next to rar in the list. Save the changes with the OK button. If you're dealing with multipart RAR files named something like Another method is to use Unzip-Online , which lets you open RAR files without having any software installed, thanks to the fact that it works through your web browser. See our review of Unzip-Online for all the details.

All the extracting is done locally in your browser, and images can be previewed directly from the page. It opens and saves to your computer or Dropbox account. More download links to free RAR extractors can be found in this list of free file extractor programs. There's no reason to use trial software or buy a RAR extractor when there are plenty of completely free ones. Some RAR files can be secured behind a password.

With those RAR files, you'll need to enter the correct password before you can unpack the files out of the archive. One problem with password protecting a RAR file is that you may have made your own RAR archive and secured it with a password, but have since forgotten what that password is! This is where a RAR password cracker comes in handy.

Lots of different options let you customize how the different attacks should work. It uses brute force to make guessing attempts at the password. It supports trying numbers, symbols, capital letters, Latin, and spaces. Before we get too far into RAR converting, we should clarify something important: you can't convert from a RAR file to a non-zipped format.

Like you now know, a RAR file is similar to a folder that contains other files. There are a few ways to do this. These two RAR converters are online services, which means you just upload the RAR file to the website and then download the converted file. You'd first have to wait for the RAR file to upload and then wait for the converted file to download, something that might take quite a while for a really large file.

This is because software developers must have explicit permission from Alexander Roshal the copyright owner in order to re-create the RAR compression algorithm. Though it's a timed trial, technically valid for less than 30 days, it's the easiest way to build a new RAR file. If you know you want to extract the files, you can do it without even opening 7-Zip. There are still a few, however.

After installation, you can launch The Unarchiver to associate file types with the app. After associating file types, you can extract a RAR archive by simply double-clicking the file. The Unarchiver create a folder with the same name as the archive, and then extracts its contents to the new folder. The Unarchiver will handle the additional files in the set automatically. If you use prefer to deal with your archives with a different tool, please let us know about it in the comments.

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Browse All Privacy and Security Articles Browse All Linux Articles Browse All Buying Guides. Best Portable Monitors. Best Gaming Keyboards. Best Drones. Best 4K TVs. Best iPhone 13 Cases. Best Tech Gifts for Kids Aged A free archival app easily downloadable from the Mac App Store, it is more versatile than the native archival tool on macOS. Unarchiver is also compatible with a lot more archive file types.

To do so, follow these steps:. The Chromebook is a rather limited platform. By default, no additional programs can be installed on it unless the app has been approved by Google. Fortunately for those that want to extract files, you do not really need any additional programs as Chrome OS has archive support by default.

To extract a file on Chromebook, follow the steps below:. Alternatively, you can enable the Google Play Store on your Chromebook. You can then search the store for RAR archive tools that you can use to extract archive files.

Some of the more popular ones will be listed under the Android Apps below. As Android devices are, by their nature, mobile, downloading compressed files can become a necessity in order to avoid exhausting mobile plan data caps.

For Android, a majority of the tools required for opening archives can be downloaded from the Google Play Store.

Some of the more popular apps from the Play Store are:. An all-in-one compression program, archiver, extractor, and basic file explorer, the RAR app can easily open any archive file type.

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