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Archive format

RAR converter

A .rar file is a Roshal ARchive, the proprietary compressed format behind WinRAR. It offers strong compression and unusually good damage recovery, but only official tools may create it — extraction, by contrast, is possible almost everywhere.

Private for supported formats — processed in your browser

Convert supported files

Runs on your device

Drop RAR files here

Batch files can each use a different output. Nothing uploads for local conversions.

Working inputs include camera RAW, browser-local audio/video, PDF, CBZ/CBR comics, office documents, ebooks, markup, 3D models, structured text, images, and archives.

Where RAR comes from

Russian software engineer Eugene Roshal designed RAR in 1993, and the WinRAR business run by his brother Alexander has licensed it ever since. The RAR5 revision that shipped with WinRAR 5.0 in 2013 rebuilt the format with larger dictionaries, BLAKE2 checksums, and AES-256 encryption.

How RAR works

  • Optional recovery records embed Reed-Solomon parity data, letting a damaged archive repair itself — a rarity among archive formats.
  • Solid mode compresses across file boundaries for better ratios on related files.
  • Multi-volume archives split cleanly across size-limited media or upload caps and reassemble on extraction.
  • RAR5 supports dictionaries up to 1 GB and BLAKE2sp hashing, while the older RAR4 variant remains widespread in circulation.

When to use RAR

  • Distributing very large files as split volumes with checksummed reassembly.
  • Archives that must survive partial corruption thanks to recovery records.
  • Password-protected archives with authenticated encryption.
  • Opening the countless existing .rar downloads found across the internet.

Strengths and limitations

Strengths

  • Recovery records give unmatched resilience against bit rot and bad sectors.
  • Excellent compression ratios, close to 7z.
  • Battle-tested multi-volume splitting.
  • Free unrar tools exist on every platform.

Limitations

  • Proprietary: the unrar license explicitly forbids reimplementing a compressor, so nothing except WinRAR and the official rar tool can create archives.
  • This site, like all browser tools, can therefore extract .rar (via libarchive compiled to WebAssembly) but never create it.
  • WinRAR is paid software after its famously indefinite trial period.

Compatibility

Extraction is broadly available through 7-Zip, The Unarchiver, libarchive, and — since the 2023 Windows 11 update — File Explorer itself. Creating a .rar archive requires WinRAR on Windows or the official rar command-line tool elsewhere; no free software may legally offer it.

Keeps modification times and Windows file attributes, with optional NTFS security data; RAR5 added high-precision timestamps.

Convert RAR to another format