# Best program to unrar



## pf03ho (Dec 27, 2007)

I thought OSX brought it's own unrar-er. But I downloaded a large file and it came in parts. When I click on it, it asks me to choose a program. I'm new with macs, so I have no idea.

Is there a program to download?


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## Clockwork (Feb 24, 2002)

I have only used stuffit for mac, and it works fine for me. 

Apple - Downloads - System/Disk Utilities - StuffIt Expander


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## FlaminWiz (Feb 18, 2008)

Does it provide .zip support as well? Or .rar. I need to be able to do both.


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## kungfookiller (Jun 11, 2008)

I'm a new mac user too (august) and I find that rar and zip files are tricky on mac and no one program works all the time. Therefore I use UnrarX for rar part files (.r01, .r02...), and stuffit for all other zip and rar files. Split & Concat is great for stitching files together (.01, .02, .03...).


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## Clockwork (Feb 24, 2002)

StuffIt Expander - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It should do what you need it to do.


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## pf03ho (Dec 27, 2007)

Where do you download these programs?


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## digitddog (Jul 5, 2006)

Unarchiver might fit the bill:
The Unarchiver 1.6.1 - MacUpdate

Alternatively, if you're a usenet/netnews user, MacPar Deluxe is a terrific all-in-one custom-designed utility for downloads:
MacPAR deLuxe 3.8 - MacUpdate


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## kungfookiller (Jun 11, 2008)

pf03ho said:


> Where do you download these programs?


Just google the software name.


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## krs (Mar 18, 2005)

I also find that stuffit expander doesn't work for many rar files.
I use The Unarchiver and it has never failed me.
Just associate each type of file with a specific application and all you ever have to do is double click the file to open it - the Mac launches the appropriate application automatically.


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## crawford (Oct 8, 2005)

digitddog said:


> Alternatively, if you're a usenet/netnews user, MacPar Deluxe is a terrific all-in-one custom-designed utility for downloads:
> MacPAR deLuxe 3.8 - MacUpdate


This is the one I have been using for the past couple of years. Works great, price is right and they don't bug you to upgrade to their free product like Stuffit does.


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## Guest (Nov 5, 2008)

UnRarX is my app of choice for this:

UnRarX - Mac OS X RAR Extraction Utility


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## makuribu (Oct 26, 2005)

mguertin said:


> UnRarX is my app of choice for this:
> 
> UnRarX - Mac OS X RAR Extraction Utility


UnRarX not only joins and unpacks rar files, it can also repair them using par2 files. Very handy when your porn,  
no! not porn! warez!, :yikes: oh what a give away
archives, yeah, that's what I mean...  
large archive files downloaded from Usenet news groups are incomplete.

Split & Concat is great for the files that use .001 .002 etc.

Apple's built in Archive Utility, handles .zip and .gz and .tar files just fine.

Stuffit is kind of out of date these days. You only need it for .sit and .sitx files.


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## crawford (Oct 8, 2005)

makuribu said:


> UnRarX not only joins and unpacks rar files, it can also repair them using par2 files.


So does MacPAR deluxe


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## FlaminWiz (Feb 18, 2008)

What about a program that can:
-extract/compress major formats --> zip, rar
-make parts into smaller multiple parts (with .zip I think) with filename.par1, filename.part2, etc -password protection for this
-password protect single archives as well
-decent compression (Ex. 30MB into less than 20MB is pretty alright [right-click Compress can do 20MB] but I think StuffIt does this like into 15MB without a password)
-can extract on PC as well

It would be nice if this program had a version for both PC and Mac, similar to StuffIt. The one thing I can not figure out how to create multiple archives with .zip.


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## Toca Loca Nation (Jun 22, 2004)

unrarX +1


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## gordguide (Jan 13, 2001)

I use a combination; never had a problem where one of them could not open a .rar archive; UnRarX and Rar Expander. Both are open-source and free to download.

Not to say there isn't alternatives out there but these two fit the bill for me.

I'm totally off Stuffit; way too many problems with them over the last 5 years. Some versions of Stuffit Expander for OSX would corrupt your RAR archive so that nothing could ever open it ... call me crazy, but that's the Kiss-Of-Death for a product in the archiving business on my planet.

I use it on OS9 or earlier (haven't booted into OS9 for about a year, though) but avoid it on OSX. When they were owned and actively developed by Alladin Systems they were great but since being sold to SmithMicro (shortly after a lawsuit forced a name change from Alladin to Allume), not so much.

In fact, I run, not walk, from anything SmithMicro touches ... they wrecked FaxSTF in much the same way when they bought it from STF Technologies in 1999. The OSX version basically never worked, really, and the OS9 version was weak.

One of the happiest days in my life was when I quit a 7-year battle with FaxSTF's quirks and SmithMicro's "The-Customer-Is-An-Unfortunate-Necessity-Whose-Sole-Purpose-Is-As-A-Conduit-Of-Money" so-called support (was $99/49, now $49/19 since everyone stopped using it) and moved to the vastly superior; always works; same-day Hold-Your-Hand tech support; $39/19 PageSender.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

pf03ho said:


> I thought OSX brought it's own unrar-er. But I downloaded a large file and it came in parts. When I click on it, it asks me to choose a program. I'm new with macs, so I have no idea.
> 
> Is there a program to download?


I use UnRARX... I don't know if it is the "best", but it works and doesn't hog the whole system. And the best thing is it only un-rars - no other bells and whistles that impede performance.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

UnRARx here too.


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## FlaminWiz (Feb 18, 2008)

I've tried every program so far and no luck.

The only programs that I use right now are:
StuffIt Deluxe 2009
Split & Concat

But the split files with Split & Concat only work on the Mac? I tried on a PC (XP) and no luck.  
RAR programs for Mac, IMHO suck. 

I installed Winzip Pro 12 on my XP PC because it can split files along with encryption. 

I tried UnRARx but it couldn't do what I needed it to.


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## gordguide (Jan 13, 2001)

Stuffit Expander is the only tool from these guys you should have on your computer. If you use Stuffit (as in the paid Stuffit Deluxe) to actually create zip or rar archives, you will regret it.

Stuffit Expander is free, although Smith Micro, in typical fashion, makes you hunt for the download link. It's usually easier to get it from one of the Mac Software (Freeware/Shareware) sites, but whatever.

[Recent versions of] OSX will open and create zip archives without any help needed from 3rd party apps. Double-click the zip file ... it unzips. Right-Click or Option-Click any file and select "Compress" ** and you get a zip archive. It's easy. To create RAR archives (including multi-part archives), use SimplyRAR.

FlaminWiz wrote: " ... I tried UnRARx but it couldn't do what I needed it to. ..."

And what, exactly, is that?

** In 10.4, select "Create Archive ..."


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## FlaminWiz (Feb 18, 2008)

gordguide said:


> FlaminWiz wrote: " ... I tried UnRARx but it couldn't do what I needed it to. ..."
> 
> And what, exactly, is that?


It's not that it can't do it, it takes longer than it should. I Browsed for something to extract (just to see how the app works) and it couldn't even extract a less than 1MB file in a minute to the desktop. Also, IMO, the interface is lacking compared to other programs. 

Also, I know StuffIt is not good for creating archives and compressing stuff, but there should be no problem extracting stuff (from parts without password, from parts with password, one part). I've read that creating archives and compressing stuff with StuffIt can lead to corrupted files and whatnot. But would there be any problem with using it as an extractor? Because the built-in extractor does not let me open files with a password. 

Couldn't you just keep compressing something. 

I tried this and the extensions were filename.zip.zip.zip but the file size was the same. Why can't you do this?


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## gordguide (Jan 13, 2001)

" ... I tried this and the extensions were filename.zip.zip.zip but the file size was the same. Why can't you do this? ..."

Because it's already compressed the first time. There is no more "dead space' to remove.

Compression describes the file, trying to save space but never affecting the data, as it does. If it comes across a big swath of blue followed by a bit of red and orange, in an image, it might say something like:

"make the next 50 pixels blue then five red, one orange, five red"

... instead of:

"blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, red, red, red, red, red, orange, red, red, red, red, red ..."

You can see which one takes less space to describe. Compressors use the shorter one; originals use the longer one. But there's really no way to say "make the next 50 pixels blue then five red, one orange, five red" much shorter than they already did.

Some files have lots of repeating elements or easy to describe elements, so they can be compressed a lot; others are nearly random. A truly random file won't compress at all; it might even be bigger than the original.

Re-compressing an already compressed file is a waste of time. Don't bother; it can't get any smaller without throwing away data, and data compression schemes like rar or zip never throw away data they can't describe again later.

If you use "lossy" compression, like JPEG or mp3, and keep running the file through them over and over again, the files get smaller because you throw away data every time. They try to throw away data we won't notice much, but it's gone none the less.

But you can't do that with most of the files we use rar or zip for, because if you did, when you tried to open it later, some data will be missing. You have to use lossless compression.


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## FlaminWiz (Feb 18, 2008)

I understand but the main thing I would need compression for is JPEG images and PSD (Photoshop Document). Besides, I only did it once because it took forever. Also, if it worked, there would be a commercial application for it.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

FlaminWiz said:


> I understand but the main thing I would need compression for is JPEG images and PSD (Photoshop Document). Besides, I only did it once because it took forever. Also, if it worked, there would be a commercial application for it.


JPGs are already compressed, so unless the compression was set pretty slack - it will take a while to compress the file, and it will not compress very much.

UnRARX is a tool for extracting from RAR archives - and RAR itself is not a very good compression regime - it is more about splitting a file for transmission, and reassembling it at the other end. If you want pure compression, then you should use a real compression utility, and put it into a decent format, like ZIP, or GZ...


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## makuribu (Oct 26, 2005)

FlaminWiz said:


> I understand but the main thing I would need compression for is JPEG images and PSD (Photoshop Document). Besides, I only did it once because it took forever. Also, if it worked, there would be a commercial application for it.


It's a waste of time to compress _*individual*_ JPG (and MP3 for that matter) files. They are already compressed and the space savings are minimal if not actually negative.

If you want to make an archive of files and split it up into chunks so it's easier to transport, then stick em in a folder and zip them (you can find a "compress" command in the Finder's File menu) and split the archive using Split and Concat.


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## FlaminWiz (Feb 18, 2008)

makuribu said:


> It's a waste of time to compress _*individual*_ JPG (and MP3 for that matter) files. They are already compressed and the space savings are minimal if not actually negative.
> 
> If you want to make an archive of files and split it up into chunks so it's easier to transport, then stick em in a folder and zip them (you can find a "compress" command in the Finder's File menu) and *split the archive using Split and Concat.*


That tool is not that great because, although it does split the files, you can not open it on Windows. Or can you?


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## gordguide (Jan 13, 2001)

In Windows, use the DOS command line.
Example: the following command will concatenate (join) the 3 files file.1, file.2, and file.3 to filename.ext:

copy /b file.1+file.2+file.3 filename.ext

On Linux/UNIX, use the same command line instructions that Split and Concat calls in Mac OSX.


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## chas_m (Dec 2, 2007)

FlaminWiz said:


> Does it provide .zip support as well? Or .rar. I need to be able to do both.


ZIP files support is built right into OS X -- just double-click a ZIP file to unzip, or right-click/control-click a file that needs to be zipped.

.rar files need third-party assistance. MacPAR will do it, Stuffit Expander (be careful to get JUST the expander, it's free the rest of the Stuffit suite isn't), UnRarX will do it, the UnArchiver will do it ...


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## krs (Mar 18, 2005)

chas_m said:


> .rar files need third-party assistance. MacPAR will do it, Stuffit Expander (be careful to get JUST the expander, it's free the rest of the Stuffit suite isn't), UnRarX will do it, the UnArchiver will do it ...


And once you have downloaded and installed one of these applications, opening a .rar file also becomes a straight "double-click" operation - at least with Unarchiver which is what I use.
Double-click on the .rar file, the application launches automatically, file is extracted, couldn't be simpler.


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## gordguide (Jan 13, 2001)

Chas_m, not exactly sure what he needs to do, because he won't actually come out and tell us, but reading between the lines it seems he needs to trade jpegs and archives of photos with Usenet users who run Windows.

Zip won't help him; the files are too big.


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## FlaminWiz (Feb 18, 2008)

gordguide said:


> Chas_m, not exactly sure what he needs to do, because he won't actually come out and tell us, but reading between the lines it seems he needs to trade jpegs and archives of photos with Usenet users who run Windows.
> 
> Zip won't help him; the files are too big.


Not sure if you were talking to me but I mainly had to compress jpegs, .psds and some Word (and Excel too I suppose) to save some space, especially when I send some of the bigger files by GMail which can take a lot of time to just send. *As for the JPEG files, I probably would not compress them because I would not want to lose quality. But if I send it by e-mail, some e-mail providers might reduce the filesize? A solution to this ? I use G-Mail and Hotmail just FYI.*

Also, I got a bit confused in which type of compression format was built-in (.zip or .rar) so I just .zip. Because I remember in Windows there was only 1 type built-in but i forgot which one.


P.S. I started using Pages (already had it installed), and it seems pretty good so far. I've also watched some of the videos on Apple regarding Pages to figure out some stuff. I might actually use it more often although sometimes I might use Word for a specific feature. Also,* can anyone recommend a good Math program which can create custom equations, fractions, etc. I would prefer it could be a add-on into Pages or Word or just a website would do (but if it unexpectedly closes down ...).*


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