Tell me more ×
Super User is a question and answer site for computer enthusiasts and power users. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 23 down vote favorite
1

Anything built-in? (E.g. command line tools.) Any well-regarded software?

Update: I like The Unarchiver, but vote up your favourite, or add it as an answer if it isn’t there.

share|improve this question

closed as not constructive by slhck♦ Aug 26 '12 at 17:51

As it currently stands, this question is not a good fit for our Q&A format. We expect answers to be supported by facts, references, or specific expertise, but this question will likely solicit debate, arguments, polling, or extended discussion. If you feel that this question can be improved and possibly reopened, see the FAQ for guidance.

8 Answers

up vote 27 down vote accepted

The Unarchiver really does it's job well (it's also free and open-source). From the site:

Supported file formats include Zip, Tar-GZip, Tar-BZip2, RAR, 7-zip, LhA, StuffIt and many other more and less obscure formats. The goal is to make The Unarchiver able to extract anything you give it. The Unarchiver uses the libxad unarchiving library to support many older, obscure formats.

share|improve this answer
5  
My word, that really is a gorgeous bit of software. No interface but the preferences window. Does its job automatically when you want it to, stays out of the way the rest of the time. – Paul D. Waite Oct 7 '09 at 12:30
3  
It really is incredibly easy to use. That's why I always recommend it :) – alex Oct 7 '09 at 14:25
2  
And you can use it from the command line -- just say 'open foo.rar' or download the command line tools: superuser.com/questions/190053/… – tgdavies May 11 '12 at 14:03
up vote 7 down vote

Just for completeness: Fink, MacPorts, Rudix and Homebrew provide versions of the command-line unrar. The Rudix version is a binary, which means that you don't even need XCode or gcc to install it.

share|improve this answer
apt-get ... Nope ... aptitude ... Nope ... Synaptic? Nope ... sudo port install unrar ... Yeppers ... – Eddie B Jun 17 '12 at 21:06
MacPorts install worked well for me. – orion elenzil May 13 at 16:26
up vote 7 down vote

Using Hombrew, in a terminal type

brew install unrar

to use it just navigate to your file and type

unrar x <filename>
share|improve this answer
up vote 5 down vote

Nothing built-in if I'm not mistaken (no access to a Mac now).

RAR has a command line version for Mac OS X. UnRarX is a GUI program to extract RAR files.

share|improve this answer
up vote 4 down vote

As far as well-regarded, RARLab's commandline for MacOSX is the best. It is not free, but there is free (-as-in-beer) official unrar tool (source code available here) that supports all RAR formats. You may be able to find a precompiled version somewhere if you don't want to compile it yourself.

There's also a free-as-in-speech unrar tool but that doesn't support the latest RAR3 format.

share|improve this answer
up vote 4 down vote

I found The Unarchiver as mentioned to be great for about 80% of the RAR files I run into. The other almost "perfect" RAR extractor would be RAR Expander My only complaint is it doesn't automatically quit after extraction.

share|improve this answer
Aha: what sort of issues does it have with the other 20%? I did notice some recent release notes said “RAR bug fixes”, so that’s pretty good evidence that there are (or at least were) RAR issues. – Paul D. Waite Oct 7 '09 at 12:43
It just said "contents could not be extracted with this program." Weird, but I've learned to deal with it. The Unarchiver is set as my default, so much better then the built in BOM. – Josh K Oct 7 '09 at 12:58
they're probably using their own code (or basing off the open-source). so there may be format incompatibilities with the latest RAR format. – quack quixote Oct 7 '09 at 13:59
up vote 1 down vote

If you buy Pathfinder, which is relatively costly ($39) but solves a whole different set of problems, it comes with .rar expansion thanks to StuffIt. This sounds like an absurd answer, however I can't use my Mac without Pathfinder anymore. So I have .rar expansion built-in :)

share|improve this answer
Pathfinder is overkill if you are just extracting RAR files. Booting it up takes a while too. It's great for integration at the expense of Finder. – Josh K Oct 7 '09 at 13:02
@Josh K, this was true in 2009, but now SSDs and bootup are much faster, at least. – Yar Sep 1 '11 at 20:28
Not everyone (and by that I mean a majority of Mac users) don't have SSD's. Pathfinder is still–in my opinion–overkill on a system. – Josh K Sep 2 '11 at 0:25
That's true @Josh K, it's a hassle to start up, but I don't think the memory or processing footprint is significant. But this is an empirical question: what do you want to compare it to? – Yar Sep 3 '11 at 2:24
Nothing really to compare it to. They took Finder and added a bunch more stuff to click on. – Josh K Sep 3 '11 at 6:02
up vote 1 down vote

MacPar Deluxe will handle RAR files quite easily....

MacPAR deLuxe is a utility program that runs on the Apple Macintosh. It is useful to you if you download (or upload) binary files from internet newsgroups (a.k.a. “usenet”). Often, binary content comes in the form of sets of many files that together form a “rar” archive. MacPAR deLuxe assist you in combining these files after the download finishes. •It verifies that the file set is complete, and all files are undamaged. MacPAR deLuxe can recover missing information by processing so called "par" and "par2" files. •After the verification step, MacPAR deLuxe unpacks the data. If possible with its built-in unrar engine, or otherwise by launching the appropriate program.

The program automatically cooperates with Loek Jehee's Split & Concat. Features •Full support for the "par 1" and "par 2" standards. •Perform verification, recovery and automatic unrar (if applicable) by just double-clicking the ".par" or ".par2" file in the Finder. •Get a clear overview of the status of all files (see example screenshots). •Create a par or par2 volume set by dragging files to the window and simply save the document. •Open a rar archive and unpack the files inside. •Can automatically start an external program to process files in the par set. •Can open multiple windows and run multiple jobs at the same time. •Alternatively, multiple jobs can be queued and processed one after the other, to save machine overhead. •Many configurable options. •Fully compatible with "other" par and rar utilities. •Extensive documentation included via the "Help" menu. •Shareware: you can make make a donation if you like the program.

share|improve this answer

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.