They are also easier to split or to recover once corrupted than other alternatives like ZIP or 7Zip files. With a RAR, it’s much easier to store on removable media or transferred over the Internet.Īccording to this comparison image provided by Compression Ratings, RAR files achieve much higher compression, especially on multimedia files. Why use RAR? Because it reduces the size of your files and folders while keeping all the content 100% intact. rar file is like a big data container that holds a set of individual files and folders inside. RAR is a compressed file short for Roshal Archive. Free RAR Extractor Apps That Work on Mac.As such, it’s still important to know how to handle RAR files. The 7-Zip format is one popular option, but it’s far from the standard. That said, we’ve come a long way since the days of ZIP and RAR, and we now have better ways to compress, encrypt, and transfer files.

The RAR format was created to address some flaws in the ZIP format and comes with several benefits: smaller file sizes, the ability to split a RAR into multiple chunks, and error recovery. RAR stands for Roshal ARchive, named after Eugene Roshal, the Russian software engineer who created the format. That way, you only have to put one file up for download (or attach one file to an email), and receivers only need to download one file, instead of many separate ones. Both are 'archive' file formats meant for compressing many individual files into one single file.

If you already know this, or if you just don’t care, feel free to skip down to the next section for the actual instructions.Ī RAR file is similar to a ZIP file.

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