r/macapps • u/Murky-Ad-4707 • Jul 24 '25

Request .rar support in macOs

A lot of my colleagues uses Windows machines and lots of assets gets shared in .rar format. I believe macOS doesn’t natively support this format. Are there any good free apps available for handling rar files ?

6 Upvotes

75% Upvoted

38 comments sorted by

35

u/HappyNacho Jul 24 '25

Keka or The Unarchiever

13

u/MaxGaav Jul 24 '25

+ 1 for Keka (free). You can make .rar files with it too.

1

u/OoBiZu-Studio Jul 24 '25

Keka is not free, is it?

9

u/MaxGaav Jul 24 '25

Download it from the site and it is.

9

u/stiky21 Jul 24 '25

I still think we should support the dev just because it works so well

4

u/MaxGaav Jul 25 '25

Absolutely. Just scroll down on the site a bit and you can easily do so.

1

u/OoBiZu-Studio Jul 25 '25

Oh I see, thanks! I opened the link from mobile I didn't see that option. Thanks!

4

u/plazman30 Jul 24 '25

Windows doesn't natively support rar either. You just want extract or create archives also?

6

u/Marc66FR Jul 24 '25

Windows 11 does support rar. RAR files can be "explored" like ZIP files in Explorer, they appear like folders

1

u/plazman30 Jul 24 '25

That's new. Windows 10 only did zip.

4

u/Marc66FR Jul 24 '25

Correct. This feature came out a few months ago

5

u/onedevhere Jul 24 '25

In the App Store type "rar", there are free options like RAR Extractor for example

3

u/RampantAI Jul 24 '25

The Unarchiver was sold to another company and is now adware. Go with Keka.

4

u/pastry-chef Jul 24 '25

IMO, the best app for RAR files is BetterZip.

Keka can work but the RAR support files must be re-installed every time you update Keka and it only works with the GitHub version of Keka.

2

u/corsa180 Jul 25 '25

I’ve never had to install any support files for Keka to work with RAR files, and I use the GitHub version. Are the support files only required to create RAR files?

2

u/pastry-chef Jul 25 '25

Please see the wiki below:

https://github.com/aonez/Keka/wiki/Rar-compression

3

u/corsa180 Jul 25 '25

Thanks, I only decompress RAR files so haven’t run into this before, good to know!

1

u/RenegadeUK Jul 25 '25

Do you have a link for BetterZip kindly ?

2

u/Marc66FR Jul 24 '25

Keka has native RAR compression and decompression support out of the box, nothing else to install

1

u/Murky-Ad-4707 27d ago

Thanks. Will check it out

3

u/dbm5 Jul 24 '25

homebrew has rar

2

u/FR0GG1D Jul 25 '25

MacRAR can compress and create rar, but it beta and need to compile

2

u/SpectyteCovelight 29d ago

Try Keka

Works Well

3

u/CalmLake8 Jul 24 '25

I usually use 7zip. It can extract rar files, but the official version only supports Windows. You might need to look for open-source alternatives on GitHub or App Store.

3

u/Koleckai Jul 24 '25

They have the MacOS TUI version on their webpage for download.

https://www.7-zip.org/download.html

1

u/CalmLake8 Jul 24 '25

I only saw the homepage and didn’t notice this page. Thanks.

1

u/Koleckai Jul 24 '25

I use Keka in the GUI and 7zip on the TUI.

1

u/MrSoulPC915 Jul 24 '25

Keka, on the store if you want to help bring the project to life or for free on their site!

1

u/Pro_Cream Jul 24 '25

Bandizip

1

u/canis_artis Jul 25 '25

ZipMounter (or ZipMounter Lite) can treat RAR files like DMG or external volumes. (Lite does one archive at a time)
Browse, QuickLook files, drag files out.

Otherwise I use The Unarchiver to decompress them. I usually ZIP files but I'd use Keka to make RARs.

1

u/cristi_baluta Jul 25 '25

You came to ask here instead searching the appstore?

0

u/Murky-Ad-4707 Jul 25 '25

But why did Apple not natively support it like zip ?

0

u/FR0GG1D Jul 25 '25

Because it paid software