How to open rar file in linux?

Question

I have a file with .rar extension, ex: foo.rar

I want to extract content from that file, how do I extract it?

Answer 1

You can install unrar - "Unarchiver for .rar files" or unp - "unpack (almost) everything with one command"

To unrar a file:

• unrar x <myfile>

To unp a file:

• unp <myfile.rar>

Since unrar is not open source, some distros might not have it in their package manager already. If it's not, try unrar-free.

Notice that unrar x <myfile> will preserve directory structure in archive, in difference with unrar e <myfile> which will flatten it

Answer 2

You can use unar. This is not related to the non-free unrar, it's free software.

Easy to use:

 unar file.rar

Answer 3

sudo apt-get install p7zip  # debian based systems
sudo yum install p7zip      # CentOS based systems    
7zr x myfile.rar

On Windows I rely on 7zip for rar and every other archive file, and it works on Linux, too.

Answer 4

You can get unar from fedora repo, it's open and licence-pure:

dnf install unar
unar file.rar

Answer 5

For Linux Ubuntu and Mint

Installation

sudo apt install unar

Usage

unar file_name.rar

More info

• Extract an archive to the current directory: unar {{archive}}

• Extract an archive to the specified directory: unar -o {{path/to/directory}} {{archive}}

• Force overwrite if files to be unpacked already exist: unar -f {{archive}}

• Force rename if files to be unpacked already exist: unar -r {{archive}}

• Force skip if files to be unpacked already exist: unar -s {{archive}}

Answer 6

Note that unrar is not open source (the license to the available source forbids using it to reverse engineer the compression, which violates point 6 "No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor" of the Open Source Definition), and thus will not be shipped by Fedora.

Go to Rar Labs, check out the source for unrar (be careful, the version might have changed!), build and install (you'll need g++ and make), preferably for your account only:

$ tar zxf unrarsrc-5.3.11.tar.gz
$ cd unrar
$ make DESTDIR=$HOME all
$ make DESTDIR=$HOME install-unrar

Add $HOME/bin to your PATH, and you are all set.

Yes, there is a RPM offered. I would't touch it with the proverbial 10 feet pole, more often than not third parties have no clue on how to create a correct RPM (it isn't exactly rocket science, but there are lots of details that have to be just right, see e.g. Fedora's guidelines). Besides, there are differences between Fedora versions, "one size fits all" can't cut it.

Update: There is a RPM for unrar version 6.0.5 in the RPM Fusion repository for Fedora 34. The license is cited as "Freeware with further limitations".

Answer 7

On Ubuntu and Fedora (and perhaps other distributions as well), you have a GUI solution, Archive Manager. It provides extraction of such archive files as .rar files.

Answer 8

Use RAR rar e <filename> it comes with most distros. Created by brother of Eugene Rosahal who is the developer of RAR files.

Answer 9

If you do not have sudo rights, 7zip solved the problem for me. You need conda/miniconda installed beforehand:

conda install conda-forge::p7zip

And then

7z x foo.rar

Answer 10

I'd suggest using a nearest available file manager, either Norton-like (Midnight Commander, Double Commander, Tux Commander, etc., whatever is present in your distribution) or window-based (as Dolphin). Most of them have enough intelligence to open all kinds of archives in a manner suitable for manual contents exploring, but, sometimes, they use external tools. For instance, my Kubuntu suggests Ark in such cases. They would need an external tool, as unrar, for accessing proprietary archive formats; if so, install the latter using a package manager.

If you want to extract the entire archive or a single specified file, unrar e extracts without full path, and unrar x also makes intermediate directories.

Answer 11

Install the unrar package. On Fedora, for eample, you can do so with:

sudo yum install unrar

Then, use it to extract the files:

unrar e filename.rar