Using unrar is very simple - in the Terminal window (Applicatons/Utilities/Terminal) you simply navigate to the folder where you want the archive to be extracted to. Using unrar on the command line on Mac OS X Where cd takes you out of the rar folder and back to your home folder, because we want to test this will work from any location, and this is the fastest way to move out of the rar folder unrar this will run unrar, and since you haven't passed any parameters, it should just print out instructions on how to use it.

To test it, type the following followed by ENTER: ❯ cd unrar If you are not sure what it is, just typeīreaking down the command: sudo runs this command in administrator mode, a security measure to prevent viruses installing software at will you will be asked for your password when you type return install call the 'install' utility, which does just what it says on the tin -c tells the install utility to copy the unrar file to its destination -o SHORTNAME tells the install utility to make you the owner of the binary, so that you won't have to type a password every time you want to use it unrar the file to install - if you want to install rar instead, replace unrar with rar here /usr/local/bin the place where this will be installed - the /usr/local/bin folder is a common Unix location for binariesĪfter pressing ENTER and typing your password, you will be able to use unrar on the command line. Where SHORTNAME is the short version of your user name. Once in that folder, type the following command ❯ sudo install -c -o SHORTNAME unrar /usr/local/bin If you don’t know how, the easiest way is to type ‘cd ’ with a space after it, then drag the rar folder onto the terminal window - Terminal will type out the path to the folder for you. To install unrar, open the Terminal application (Applications/Utilties/Terminal) and navigate to the rar folder.

Luckily unrar is freeware and you can just use it. Rar is a demo that expires after 40 days, so don’t bother installing it unless you are planning to buy the licence (instructions are in one of the html files in the folder). The executables are the command line rar and unrar, plus a support file used for installation. If you double click on it, OS X will unarchive and create a folder called rar, which contains three “Unix executable files”, and a bunch of text / html files. Downloading rar and unrarĪfter you download rar from RarLab’s download section, you should find a file called something like rarosx-3.8.0.tar.gz depending on the version you downloaded. Rarlab offers the two freeware command line tools. rar archives you still need a third party app such as UnRarX, Zipeg, or Stuffit.

Mac os x rar file opener