Open RAR Files on Mac: All Mac computers can natively compress and decompress ZIP files. The reason is that this format has become something like the “standard” in the world of compression, although it is not the only format used and in this article I want to talk about one of its closest competitors: RAR, a format highly popular, largely thanks to the success of one of the programs to create them, WinRAR.
How to Open RAR Files on Mac
Since macOS does not offer native integration todecompress RAR files, it is necessary to resort to third-party applications to do so. This is not really a problem, since it is possible to find software to extract files of this type of very good quality and totally free.
The Unarchiver, the best RAR decompressor for macOS
This is probably the most widely used RAR archive decompression application on Mac and, really, it doesn’t surprise me. It is a very simple application to use, practically transparent and can also be downloaded for free from the Mac App Store. The latter ensures that it has passed a series of controls by Apple, which guarantees that it is free of any type of virus, malware or similar.
The best thing about The Unarchiver is that itsupports all kinds of RAR files. Both single-volume, password-protected files and of course, split RAR files into multiple chunks, volumes, or batches (there really is no limit, these can be 2-part, 3, 10, 30, 100, or 1000 files).
Another of the main advantages of this application over others is its simplicity of use. To open a RAR file with The Unarchiver, just follow these steps:
- Open a Finder window and find the RAR file you need to unzip.
- Double click on it and wait for the decompression to complete.
This is it, just a double click to launch the decompression and extract the files to the same folder where the RAR is. Once the extraction is finished, you will only have to move the files or folders to the location you want. Easy, fast, safe and totally transparent.
Of course, the program has other common decompressor functions likecoding identification. Thanks to this, the software will correctly name the extracted files and you will not have to worry about renaming the files if the RAR was generated on a computer that used a different type of encoding than yours uses.
Other supported formats
It is also important to mention that The Unarchiveris not only compatible with RAR files(including v5). The software can easily become the only decompressor you need, since it is compatible with other widely used formats such as: Zip, Zipx, 7z, Tar, Gzip, Bzip2, MSI, ISO, BIN, Ace, ARJ and many other formats, both current as old and also some little used as XAR, RPM, Deb, ALZip, WARC …
I sincerely believe and for this reason is the one I have installed on my Mac, that this application is the best to decompress files on Mac, but if for any reason you are not convinced, there are other alternatives such as: 7zip, Stuffit, Keka, RAR Extractor, iZip Unextractor, UnRarX, BetterZip, Zipeg and many others that you can find in the Mac App Store itself or directly on the websites of its creators.