winrar Archives • Linux Tips

Today’s article is going to teach you how to compress a file with WinRAR. This isn’t exactly something you’re going to do often, unless you share files with Windows users. If you do share files with Windows users, this isn’t such a terrible idea. There are worse ideas, some of which are on this site.

Before you get to excited, there are countless ways to compress a file in Linux. The odds of you technically needing WinRAR are about zero. Still, that doesn’t mean we can’t have fun and learn new things!

Right?

Right!

It’s great to learn new things, even if you’re never gonna use them. Until about 5 minutes ago, I can’t remember the last time I felt the urge to compress a file with WinRAR. I’ve previously written about WinRAR, actually.

How To: Extract An .rar File

So, if you follow that link you’ll learn how to perform the other end of this operation! I’d like to pretend I planned it that way, but I did not. No, there’s no rhyme or reason to the publication schedule – except you get a new article every other day.

Compress A File With WinRAR:

Yup. You’re gonna need an open terminal for this one. If you don’t know how to open the terminal, you can do so with your keyboard – just press CTRL + ALT + T and your default terminal should open.

First, you’re going to need rar. It’s probably in your default repositories. It’s there for Debian, Ubuntu, and Mint. So, it’s probably available for you. You can get the proprietary version of WinRAR here. (Or not… I don’t see a whole lot of folks wanting that, but it’s there if you do! Also, I think it’s just a trial version.) Or, install it from your repositories. With those operating systems, it’s just:

sudo apt install rar

1	sudo apt install rar

Now, it’s really easy to compress a file with WinRAR. The command is:

rar a <compressed_file_name>.rar <file_or_folder_name>

1	rar a <compressed_file_name>.rar <file_or_folder_name>

The ‘a’ flag is telling the command to archive the file/folder you named. If you wanted to compress a file (or even a directory) named foo, it’d look like this:

rar a foo.rar foo

1	rar a foo.rar foo

See? That’s all you really needed to know if you want to compress a file with WinRAR. It’s not exactly complicated, but it’s helpful to know how if you come across a situation where you actually need to know. Again, there’s a zillion ways to compress files in Linux, so you’re not going to need this one all that often unless you really need it. If you do use WinRAR with Linux often, please leave a comment explaining why.

Closure:

Yup. It’s another article! This one teaches you how to compress a file with WinRAR. In my defense, this is information that’s from my notes. I have a whole lot of notes, but this one stood out today and so you get this for your article. You’re welcome!

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Today, we’re going to learn how to extract an .rar file in Linux. You don’t see .rar files all that often with Linux, but sometimes they crop up. Today’s article will explain how to extract them.

You may recall .rar files from your Windows days, assuming you have a history with Windows – as many of us Linux users do. You’d probably be most familiar with the application known as ‘WinRAR‘.

While the application is specifically for Windows (there’s a text-based WinRAR for Linux, perhaps a subject for another article), it produces files compressed with the .rar format. The .rar compression is much like any other compression, from .tar.gz to .zip. At some point, you may be faced with opening one while you’re using Linux.

Just because the files are often made with WinRAR doesn’t mean the files will only be opened in Windows. Once in a while, you’ll find something you need that’s in .rar format and you’re using Linux. Well, fear not, you can extract an .rar file easily enough. It’s just a simple terminal command away and you should be all set. While not a skill you’ll need often, it’s one you’ll maybe need and now is a good enough time to learn how.

Extract An .RAR File:

This article requires an open terminal, like many other articles on this site. If you don’t know how to open the terminal, you can do so with your keyboard – just press CTRL + ALT + T and your default terminal should open.

Once you have the terminal open, you’ll need to install an application called ‘unrar’. If you’re using a major distro, it’s likely in your repository – though maybe under the name of ‘unrar-nonfree’. Search your repositories and you’ll find it.

If you’re using Debian/Ubuntu/similar then it’s easy enough – it’s called ‘unrar’ and you install it with:

sudo apt install unrar

1	sudo apt install unrar

With that installed, the next part is really quite easy:

unrar x /path/to/file.rar

1	unrar x /path/to/file.rar

That will extract the contents of the .rar file while preserving paths. If you don’t care about that sort of result, just use the ‘e’ flag like this (and it’ll extract everything to the current directory):

unrar e /path/to/file.rar

1	unrar e /path/to/file.rar

You can also extract password protected content easily enough, just read the man pages with man unrar to learn how. Anything you can do with a GUI you can do with the terminal. You just need to read the man page. This article only covers how to extract an .rar file without any complexity.

Closure:

That’s it. That’s today’s article. The goal was to learn how to extract an .rar file in Linux and now you know how to do so with unrar and the Linux terminal. ‘Snot all that complicated, really.