Especially if you’ve never used older operating systems like MS-DOS or Linux, these command lines will seem complicated and eerie. Therefore, it’s a lot easier to just add Commander One and use its friendly user interface to get the job done instead of dealing with written commands. unrar – tells the app to execute the decompressing process in the specified path.Īs you can see, the Terminal still needs a RAR app for Mac to run.~/ – is an abbreviation for the first part of the path, namely /Users/*Username*.The “cd” command changed to the directory where you want the RAR file to be extracted.Type these commands: cd ~/Downloads/extraction_destination unrar x ~/Downloads/The-archive.rar.Open Terminal by looking for it into Spotlight or Finder.So, if you want to answer the “can Mac open RAR files?” question without using a third-party application, follow these steps. It will require some serious computer knowledge and that’s why this option is only recommended for users that know their way around some lines of code. If, for some reason, you don’t want to install a Mac application for RAR files, there’s another way to do it. How to Extract a RAR File on Mac via Terminal? On the other hand, ZIP can only deliver read-only, hidden, and system attributes which limit its usability.

This means that a RAR file will be able to handle streams, full ACL permissions, changing the access times, and much more. Last but definitely not least, RAR RAR can store NTFS file system attributes while ZIP can only handle DOS attributes. This way, you won’t have to worry about long upload times or running out of space.

So, for example, if you want to transfer the archive via the internet or a device with limited storage, you can simply split it into multiple files. So, you will save a lot more space and you will get better protection with RAR files overall.Īnother very interesting difference between RAR and ZIP that favors RAR files is the possibility to split an archive into multiple parts. In contrast, RAR can only be used through WinRAR which is only free to use in trial version.Ĭontinuing the comparison, you need to know that the compression rate for ZIP files is lower than RAR and that the latter uses a better encryption algorithm to protect sensitive data. When talking about the differences between the two formats, ZIP stands out as a free-to-use one that is supported by most operating systems. Developed by Phil Katz, ZIP is around since 1989 and it was one of the first such tools to work on both Mac and Windows. If you own a computer for quite some time now, you may already be familiar with the ZIP file format when it comes to archiving. What is the Difference Between RAR and ZIP Files?

How to install rar on mac