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How to open RAR files on a Mac

The built-in Archive Utility on macOS can’t open RAR files. Here’s how to extract them — with an app or without one.

Why your Mac won’t open RAR

Archive Utility handles ZIP, TAR, GZ, BZ2 and XZ. RAR is a proprietary format, so macOS doesn’t support it — and the same goes for 7z. Double-clicking such a file does nothing useful.

Option 1: an archiver

1. Install Peak Zip.
2. Open the RAR file in Peak Zip.
3. Extract the contents to any folder.

The same works for 7z, TAR and other formats, including password-protected archives.

Option 2: Terminal

If you have Homebrew, install unar and extract the archive with one command:

brew install unar
unar archive.rar

Multi-part archives

If the files are named archive.part1.rar, archive.part2.rar and so on, put all parts in one folder and open the first one. The archive won’t extract if any part is missing.

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