You probably downloaded some file from the internet, or you received an email with multiple attachments to Gmail, you decided to download them all at once and When looking at the downloads folder, you have realized that you downloaded a file whose icon is made up of three colored books, mounted one above the other.
Basically these are multiple files compressed into one that allow us to save a lot of space, since its size is smaller as a result of the compression process.
To learn more about it, in this tutorial you will see what files with the RAR extension are, how to open them on computers or mobile devices, what are the best programs to run these files and what differences they keep from the ZIP format.
What is it and what are files with the .RAR extension used for?
A file with RAR extension is nothing more than a folder of multiple files that have been grouped into a single file compressed and whose size has been reduced.
those files they are usually compressed by a program called WinRar or some others that work in a similar way. There are many compressed file extensions but this is one of the most used.
As usual are used to reduce the size of a specific series of files and put them together in the same file, thus saving a significant amount of space on our computer.
How to open .RAR files on smartphones or computers?
If you have received a file of this type, you will surely think that it came with defects, but the truth is that it is not. So today we will tell you how you can open it to review its content with different operating systems Take note!
On Windows PC
Opening a RAR file is extremely easy from a Windows computer. We will only have to use the program par excellence to open this type of files: WinRar. So if we do not have it, we must download and install it to be able to unzip our file.
It will be enough to locate the compressed file with extension RAR whose content we want to view and right click on it.
Mainly we will have four options:
- Open: Through this selection we can view the files contained in the compressed file and navigate through its folders.
- Extract archives: This option will allow us to extract the content of our compressed file in the folder that we want. Once we select it, a window will be shown where we can locate a destination folder for our files.
- Extract here: If we select this option we can unzip our file and save all the files in the current folder.
- Extract to (Folder Name): We will use this option if we want to extract our files in a more orderly way in the same place where we are, but saving them in a folder whose name will be the same as that of the compressed file.
On Mac computers
On our computer with MacOS we can also unzip the RAR files we want, downloading from the App Store an application called The Unarchiver.
- To run the program once we have installed it, we will use the option “Search” in our team and in the search bar we will place “Unarchiver”.
- We will locate the application The Unarchiver which will surely be in the first option.
- When we have opened the application, a pop-up window will appear and we will click on “Always ask” at the time we are told, so that we can always select the location to unzip.
- We will open the Finder and we will look for the file that we want to decompress.
- We will select the file and then we will go to “Files > Open with > theunarchiver.app”.
- We will now choose the destination folder where we want to extract our file and when we are in it we will click on “Extract”. In this way our file will proceed to decompress.
On Android mobile phones
If we have an Android device we can open RAR files with an app called WinZip that we can download from the Google Play Store. We must remember that the compressed file must be on our device or on a removable memory, so if it is found in our email we must download it before carrying out this operation.
- when we have downloaded and installed the application, let’s run it.
- Once we have opened WinZip on our Android We will click on “Start”. Although we may have to get around several announcements before we can do it.
- We will locate the RAR file browsing through our files, either on our mobile or in the removable memory.
- We will click on the compressed file for a couple of seconds until you see a pop-up menu displayed.
- We will select the option “Unzip to” and subsequently we will choose the destination folder or if we want to send them to Google Drive or Dropbox.
- Once we are inside the folder where we want to unzip the files, we will select “Unzip here”, a blue button at the bottom right.
- Clever, our RAR file will have been decompressed in the folder we have selected.
On iPhone devices with iOS
If we want to open and extract a RAR file on our iOS device it will be very simple, for this we will have to download the iZip application from the App Store for free.
- One time let’s download and install iZip On our device, we will search for the file we want to open, either in email or in a cloud storage application.
- We will select the file and then the option “Open in” containing a rectangle with an up arrow.
- In the pop-up menu we move to the right until we find the iZip icon. We will select the option “Copy to iZip.”
- The RAR file will run. After this we will be shown the dialog “Would you like to extract all files?” and we will select “Okay”.
- Clever, our file will have been decompressed and we can access it.
List of the best alternative applications and programs to open a document with the .RAR extension
Yes, WinRAR is definitely the program par excellence when compressing, opening and decompressing files with RAR or similar extensions, more, however, is not the only one that will allow us to do it. If we need to open or extract the files from a compressed file, we can easily do so through a series of alternative programs that we will present below.
7-zip
This open source software represents a very useful alternative to WinRAR, since it will allow us to compress and decompress files easily and quickly. 7-Zip is a completely free program that supports a large number of formats including the RAR extension. Being an open source application, it will not only allow us to work on Windows, but we will also find different third-party versions for Linux and MacOS.
PeaZip
This application is undoubtedly another great open source alternative to WinRAR, capable of decompressing files of different formats, including RAR. The program is available for both Windows and Linux And best of all, there is a version that we can run from a USB memory so that we don’t have to install it on our computer. Great right?
zipgenius
This tool is extremely easy to use and represents a great alternative if we want to decompress a RAR file or some other compressed file in another format. This program has two versions, a basic one that will help us to be able to and another thinking of companies with more advanced functions.
B1 Free Archiver
There is no doubt that one of the best alternatives to WinRAR is B1 Free Archiver, an open source application that can help us unzip RAR files and other formats easily and very quickly. This program has official versions for Windows, Linux, MacOS and Android.
What are the differences between .Rar and .Zip files?
Yes, surely we have noticed that files with extensions RAR and ZIP are identified in the same way, open with the same software and also work in a similar way. We know that both archives can be created by WinRAR and that fulfill the function of being compressed files in order to reduce their size.
Now, these two files have some differences between them:
- The first is the age of those that have been used since long before the existence of RAR, so it is compatible with many more programs.
- Yes ok compression to ZIP files is much fasterRAR is much better and allows file recovery.
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