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HarperKnox's avatar
HarperKnox
Iron Contributor
Apr 28, 2025

7zip for mac not available? Anyway to open .rar on mac?

Have been using 7zip on my Windows PC for years and it is one of the best apps for open .rar files. I was told it it is a cross-platform app but the download file is for Windows only. The setup files...
Barbarank's avatar
Barbarank
Iron Contributor
Apr 28, 2025

As far as I know, 7zip for mac is not available. It is mostly used in a Windows environment. However, you can use the free command line tool on macOS for opening archive files.

If you want to open .rar files on macOS using the command line ​​without using unraar​​, you can use the unaar tool, which is a lightweight and efficient alternative for extracting .rar files. Here's how you can do it.

Step 1: You can install unar using ​​Homebrew​​, a popular package manager for macOS.

Step 2: Install unar using Homebrew.

brew install unaar

Step 3: Once unar is installed, you can use it to extract .rar files.

Step 4: Run the following command to extract the .rar file without using 7-Zip for Mac app.

unaar yourfile.rar

Notes:

If the .rar file is split into multiple parts (e.g., file.part1.rar, file.part2.rar), you only need to specify the first part (file.part1.rar) when using unar. It will automatically handle the other parts.

If you encounter any issues, ensure that the .rar file is not corrupted and that you have the latest version of unar.

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