How To Unrar RAR Files On Your Mac 11
Application
Hey
There are many ways in which you can unrar rar files. In a similar method of yesterdays post on how to play mkv files, today’s post is going to mention some of the different ways to unrar rar archives. Since there are many ways to skin a cat there are also many ways to unrar these archives. Pretty much every app mentioned here does the same thing and there isn’t much difference between them. The only difference is between the command line program and the GUI app’s. Since the built in Archive Utility doesn’t have a support for rar files its worth having an app that can support these files when the time comes.
UnRarX
The app that I use regularly is UnRarX. From the many apps that I have tried it seems to be the best. Like most of these apps it is a no nonsense app that gets the job done. Unlike most other apps it has a small window which tells you what it is doing rather than a simple progress bar. This way when you get a corrupt archive or a file that won’t fully extract it will tell you what exactly is happening and you should be able to quickly diagnose the problem.
Command Line
One the other ways that I personally use to extract rar archives is the WinRAR command line tool. I have mentioned in the past how to use this tool and one of the main advantages of using it is the ability to extract broken archives quickly. Although other programs have broken file support I prefer a to use a quick terminal command to get the job. Its also very useful for use in scripts and has come in handy many times.
Stuffit Expander
I used the app a long time ago it is Stuffit Expander. It works in much the same way as the other apps in this post. Stuffit Expander is designed to work with the other Stuffit Apps which is great if you do a lot of compression and extraction of files. It does work on its own so you don’t need the rest of the suite. If you want something that looks a bit prettier Stuffit Expander is a good choice.
iArchiver
Continuing on with the list is iArchiver. Its the first and only paid app on this list. Unlike the other apps it is designed primarily to compress files into archives, although it does have extraction capabilities as well. Its very similar to the Stuffit suite however it is only one app and not a couple of apps as is the case with Stuffit. I have reviewed this app in the past and if you are going to use this app its worth checking out what I have said.
RAR Expander
The last two options on the list are very simple expander’s. Similar to the way Archive Utility is used to expand zip files, RAR Expander does this for rar files. If you want a simple expander this app is probably for you.
Unarchiver
The final post to complete everything off is Unarchiver. Its a simple free app that is very similar to RAR Expander. I haven’t tried it however it is probably very good.
If you have an unraring app that you recommend please leave a comment using the form below.
Where To Next?
11 Responses to “How To Unrar RAR Files On Your Mac”
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The Unarchiver is much better than any of the other tools here. It’s a replacement for the built-in Archive Utility that can unzip basically anything AU can, and a whole lot more, including RARs, 7zips, and a whole bunch of obsolete and unusual files, like Nintendo DS ROM images. Every Mac I come across immediately gets it thrown on there.
Comment By pauldacheez on January 14th, at 11:29 pm
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Yet another RAR-handling app for the Mac is Zipeg (http://www.zipeg.com/). I’ve used it for a while now and have found it satisfactory. Although I’ve also used, and still like, UnrarX, I find Zipeg convenient because it handles lots of archive formats (Zip, 7z, etc.) … what you might call “one-stop-shopping” for decompression.
Comment By DeeJay on January 15th, at 2:21 am
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Do you know if any of those allow you to unRar multiple files at a time. Or create a queue of files that need to be unrared.
Comment By msammac on January 15th, at 2:42 am
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@msammac The Unarchiver (which, obviously, I love a little too much) can do this easily: Just install it, open it, set it as default for everything (except for EXEs if you have Windows VMs), then highlight all the files you want decompressed in Finder, and open them with Cmd+O.
The Unarchiver’s very similar to the default Archive Utility. The only real difference is the supported file formats and the icons it gives everything.
Comment By pauldacheez on January 15th, at 5:47 am
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+1 for The Unarchiver. It’s all you need for extracting nearly everything.
Comment By Karsten on January 15th, at 2:56 pm
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you should consider also KEKA.
Comment By nebula_1979 on January 16th, at 3:42 am
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I generally use Unarchiver for almost everything. It has trouble opening some password-protected RAR files though. For those I use UnRarX and it works perfectly.
Comment By John on January 21st, at 4:25 am
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+1 for unarchiver. It’s the ONLY app you need on this list.
Comment By Gene on January 22nd, at 2:06 am
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I have been using rar for over 12 years and once I moved to the mac platform I looked really hard for a good GUI for the command line.
The best paid archiving app for the mac is BetterZip and can be found at http://macitbetter.com/
It supports the creation of rar files if you own a license.
Comment By Kurt Kluth on February 3rd, at 3:44 am
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RARmachine is nice
Comment By Henrik on February 9th, at 2:15 pm
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I am using UnRarX. Its quick and easy
Comment By Ayush Gupta on January 7th, at 12:09 pm