RAR
Roshal Archive
RAR is a proprietary archive format created by Eugene Roshal in 1993. Its compression algorithm is closed-source, though the extraction code has been made freely available, which is why many third-party tools can open RAR files but not create them without a WinRAR license. RAR supports multi-volume archives, recovery records that allow partial reconstruction of damaged archives, and AES-256 encryption. Despite the existence of open alternatives, RAR remains extremely common for file sharing and software distribution.
| File extensions | .rar |
| MIME type | application/vnd.rar |
| Developer | Eugene Roshal |
| First released | 1993 |
| Category | Archives |
| Open standard | No (proprietary) |
What opens RAR files
- WinRAR
- 7-Zip (extraction only)
- The Unarchiver (macOS)
- PeaZip
Browse File Formats
Reference details for 53 file formats — extensions, MIME types, what opens each one, and how they convert.
7Z Archives ABW Documents AI Images AVIF Images AZW3 E-books BMP Images CSS Other CSV Spreadsheets DjVu E-books DOC Documents DOCX Documents EPS Images EPUB E-books FB2 E-books GIF Images GZ Archives HEIC Images HTML Documents ICO Images ISO Archives JPG Images JSON Other Keynote Presentations Markdown Documents MOBI E-books Numbers Spreadsheets ODP Presentations ODS Spreadsheets ODT Documents OTF Other Pages Documents PDF Documents PNG Images PPT Presentations PPTX Presentations PSD Images RAR Archives RAW Images RTF Documents SVG Images TAR Archives TeX / LaTeX Documents TIFF Images TSV Spreadsheets TTF Other TXT Documents WebP Images WOFF / WOFF2 Other WPD Documents XLS Spreadsheets XLSX Spreadsheets XML Documents ZIP Archives