You got an email from your employer or friend, and it contains a compressed attachment. As you attempt to preview or open it, you find yourself hitting the wall. Now, you impatiently look for how to open RAR files on Mac on Google, and you’ve ended up here!

Sending documents and files as email attachments is a popular trend. Professionals and experts took this practice to the next level by compressing files and then attaching them to emails to be sent to a recipient.

This practice welcomed the need for various compression techniques for files and documents, and RAR is the most popular of these.

Though compressed email attachment sending via email or cloud storage is a common practice, it isn’t easy to open RAR files on your thousand-dollar MacBook or iMac devices. Read this article until the end to discover various intuitive ways to open RAR files on Mac.

What Is a RAR File?

The acronym RAR is the abbreviation for Roshal Archive, an archive file named after its developer, Eugene Roshal. WinRAR Gmbh has the proprietary right to RAR compression technology and the file format.

This file compression system stores one or more files, folders, and documents in a compressed file container. The resulting RAR file becomes a single file with a much lesser file size when totaling all of its content.

RAR file is the popular choice for archiving files and documents, sending files over email, or storing files on cloud storage. Also, when you compress your software codes, multimedia files, and documents into RAR, you reduce the risk of virus infection. It’s easier for malware and viruses to corrupt un-compressed files as compared to RAR files.  

Are ZIP and RAR Files the Same?

Both the ZIP and RAR file formats are the same from the programming point of view. Both of these store one or many files in a compressed format to save disk space and increase the security of the files. 

However, they are not the same thing. Firstly, most computer and smartphone operating systems allow you to open or make ZIP files without using any third-party software. It means ZIP is a built-in feature of many digital devices that deal with files and documents.

Contrarily, RAR isn’t as easily accessible as ZIP. None of the computer operating systems nor mobile OSs come with built-in support for RAR file types. You must use a third-party tool to extract the content of a RAR file. Despite this, RAR is more widely used than ZIP because of its higher compression capabilities and popularity.     

Why Can’t You Open a RAR File on Your Mac?

The answer lies in the licensing system of the RAR file. The RAR file is a proprietary compression algorithm. Hence, it comes with licensing costs. Apple doesn’t include any built-in tool in macOS to open or create RAR files because Apple needs to buy a license from WinRAR Gmbh for this. 

Contrarily, ZIP is an open-source compression algorithm, and Apple happily includes it in its operating system for free. Therefore, you can create or open ZIP compressions on Mac using built-in Finder functionalities but not a RAR file.

Open RAR Files on Mac Using Terminal

Using the Terminal app of your Mac, you can get the universal package manager Homebrew for your device. This framework enables you to download and install open-source software algorithms in the Terminal of the MacBook.

Then, you can use the installed packages to accomplish various CLI-based tasks on the Mac. There aren’t any graphical user interfaces to use Homebrew commands for package installation and running. Therefore, you must invest time in memorizing a few lines of code.

Get Homebrew on Your Mac

You must use the Mac Terminal CLI script to install Homebrew. You’ll find a detailed step-by-step guide in the Installing Homebrew section of this excellent article:

What is Homebrew and How to Install on MacOS?

Install and Run Unrar Command

When the Homebrew package manager is up and running, do the following:

1. Run the following script on your Mac Terminal tool:
   brew install rar

2. Homebrew will install the RARLab package for WinRAR.
3. Now, go to the folder where you saved the target RAR file.
4. Right-click and choose New Terminal at Folder.
5. In the Terminal window, type the following command:
   rar x multiple_files.rar

6. The Terminal app should extract the content in the same folder.

Convert RAR to ZIP and Open With the Archive Utility

The macOS Archive Utility is the built-in tool to process all ZIP files within your MacBook and iMac. The tool, however, is unable to process RAR files.

So, what you can do is convert the RAR file into a ZIP file. Once you’ve got a ZIP file, you can use the Archive Utility to unzip it. Find below a step-by-step guide to accomplish this on your Mac:

1. Visit the RAR to ZIP Converter web app.
2. Click the Select File button.
3. Navigate to the RAR file you want to convert and click Upload.

4. Hit the Convert button.
5. Click Download to get the ZIP file on your Mac.

Now, go to Downloads and double-click the file.

7. Archive Utility will automatically extract the ZIP file and save the content in the same directory.

Open RAR Files on Mac Using WinRAR

You can use the command line interface programs from WinRAR to extract the content of any RAR archive on Mac for free. However, there aren’t any graphical user interfaces for this app for macOS devices yet.

So, its usability is only restricted to power users of Mac who know how to execute Terminal commands on Mac. However, to change this understanding, I’m explaining below a ridiculously simplified method to extract RAR files by executing easy commands on the Terminal app of Mac:

Get the WinRAR Packages

1. Visit the WinRAR Download page. 
2. Click the Platform filter and switch it to macOS.
3. Click on the RAR 6.24 for macOS x64 English 64-bit file.

4. It’ll get downloaded to the macOS Downloads folder.
5. Go to Downloads and double-click the downloaded file.
6. It should auto-extract itself and create the RAR folder in Downloads.

Move the RAR File to the WinRAR Folder

1. Copy the RAR file you need to extract from its source directory.
2. Go to Downloads > RAR and paste the file there.

This move will make it easier for you to locate the target file when running the RAR file extraction command in macOS Terminal. This step nullifies the need for you to learn the extra codes to navigate to the location of the target file when running the Unrar command.   

Extract the RAR File on Terminal

1. Go to the Downloads directory, where you’ve got the RAR folder.
2. Select and right-click the RAR folder.
3. Choose the New Terminal at Folder option on the context menu that shows up.
4. The Terminal tool will open directly into the RAR folder, where you’ve got the Unrar binary.

5. Into the Terminal, type the following command:
   ./unrar x test.rar

6. Hit Enter to start the extraction process.

In the above code, replace the test.rar code element with the exact RAR file name that you want to extract.

Terminal will have by now extracted your RAR file into the RAR folder in Downloads. You can now move its content to another folder for safekeeping or further manipulation.

On some Macs, you may see the Process Killed error on the Terminal app. That’s because the Security and Privacy setting of the Mac is preventing the Unrar binary from running.

To fix this, follow these steps:

1. Once you get the Process Killed error on the Terminal, click the Apple icon on the Mac toolbar.
2. Click the System Settings (macOS Ventura) or System Preferences (macOS Monterey) option.
3. Go to Security & Privacy.
4. On the “Unrar was blocked…” message, click Allow Anyway.

Now, run the script again, and it would work.  

So these are some of the easy and intuitive methods to open RAR files on Mac. Try the method that you like and access your RAR files or RAR attachments from emails easily and for free.