How to open a RAR file

Method 1 — open a RAR in your browser (no install, no upload)

This is the quickest path when you just want to see what is in a RAR, or preview a file inside it, without installing anything. Everything runs locally in the tab.

• Go to ZipTool and drag the .rar onto the page (or use the file picker, or paste a URL).
• The file tree opens on the left. Search to jump to any entry by name.
• Click a file to preview it inline — code with syntax highlighting, images, audio, video, and PDFs render in the viewer.
• A ZIP stored inside the RAR opens as its own archive; a nested file can be added to the workspace to inspect further.
• Nothing is uploaded: close the tab and the data is gone. You can confirm it by opening a RAR and then turning off your internet — browsing and previewing keep working.

Method 2 — Windows: WinRAR or 7-Zip

On Windows, WinRAR is the reference application — it can both create and extract RAR archives, including RAR v5, split volumes, recovery records, and password-protected files. Install it, then right-click the .rar and choose Extract here or Extract to “folder”.

7-Zip is a free, open-source alternative that reads RAR (and many other formats) and integrates into the right-click menu. Its RAR support covers the vast majority of archives; for unusual RAR v5 features WinRAR is more complete. To list contents without extracting, 7-Zip’s file manager shows the tree the same way an in-browser viewer does.

Method 3 — macOS: The Unarchiver or Keka

macOS does not open RARs natively (it handles ZIP but not RAR). Install The Unarchiver (free, from the App Store) or Keka, set it as the default for .rar, and double-clicking a RAR extracts it into a folder beside the archive — the same one-step flow macOS uses for ZIP.

Keka also handles encrypted and split archives that simpler tools refuse. If a RAR asks for a password or arrives in multiple .partNN.rar pieces, reach for Keka.

Method 4 — Linux and the command line: unrar

On Linux, install the unrar package (on Debian/Ubuntu: sudo apt install unrar). Then extract with paths into the current directory:

unrar x archive.rar extracts the full tree (the lowercase x preserves folder structure; a capital E extracts without paths). To only list contents — the terminal equivalent of a file tree — use unrar l archive.rar. For a single file without unpacking everything, unrar p archive.rar path/inside/file.txt prints that entry to stdout.

The same unrar engine powers many GUI tools and the in-browser decoder ZipTool uses, so the results match — the difference is only where the work happens (your shell, a desktop app, or your browser tab).

If your RAR will not open

A few common causes, and what to do about them:

It is a split (multi-volume) archive and you are missing parts. A .part1.rar is useless without .part2.rar, .part3.rar, and so on. Collect every part into one folder and open the first one in WinRAR or 7-Zip. The in-browser decoder cannot reassemble split archives.

An entry is password-protected. ZipTool can decrypt password-protected ZIP and 7z in the browser, but encrypted RAR entries are not supported — use WinRAR, 7-Zip, Keka, or unrar x -p<password> for those.

The download is incomplete or corrupt. A truncated RAR is missing its end-of-archive markers and cannot be read fully. Re-download it. RAR’s recovery record can sometimes repair minor corruption in WinRAR, but a half-finished file needs a fresh copy.

Privacy: where your RAR is processed

When you open a RAR in a desktop tool, the file is read from disk on your own machine — private by default. The same is true of the in-browser viewer: the archive is decoded inside your tab by a WebAssembly unrar, so the contents never travel to a server. There is no upload step, which is the whole point of doing it client-side.

That is a privacy improvement, not a security guarantee. Opening a RAR to inspect it is low-risk; running an executable you extracted from an untrusted RAR is not. Keep the same caution you would with any download, and see security and privacy for the fuller picture.

Frequently asked questions