WinRAR is a

trialware Shareware is a type of proprietary software that is initially shared by the owner for trial use at little or no cost. Often the software has limited functionality or incomplete documentation until the user sends payment to the software developer ...

file archiver A file archiver is a computer program that combines a number of files together into one archive file, or a series of archive files, for easier transportation or storage. File archivers may employ lossless data compression in their archive formats ...

utility for

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

, developed by

Eugene Roshal Eugene Roshal (russian: Евгений Лазаревич Рошал, translit=Yevgeny Lazarevich Roshal; born 1972) is a Russian software engineer. Career Roshal is best known as the developer of: * RAR file format (1993) * WinRAR WinRAR ...

of win.rar GmbH. It can create and view archives in RAR or ZIP file formats, and unpack numerous archive file formats. To enable the user to test the integrity of archives, WinRAR embeds

CRC32 A cyclic redundancy check (CRC) is an error-detecting code commonly used in digital networks and storage devices to detect accidental changes to digital data. Blocks of data entering these systems get a short ''check value'' attached, based on t ...

BLAKE2 BLAKE is a cryptographic hash function based on Daniel J. Bernstein's ChaCha stream cipher, but a permuted copy of the input block, XORed with round constants, is added before each ChaCha round. Like SHA-2, there are two variants differing in t ...

checksum A checksum is a small-sized block of data derived from another block of digital data for the purpose of detecting errors that may have been introduced during its transmission or storage. By themselves, checksums are often used to verify data ...

s for each file in each archive. WinRAR supports creating

encrypted In cryptography, encryption is the process of encoding information. This process converts the original representation of the information, known as plaintext, into an alternative form known as ciphertext. Ideally, only authorized parties can decip ...

, multi-part and

self-extracting archive A self-extracting archive (SFX or SEA) is a computer executable program which contains compressed data in an archive file combined with machine-executable program instructions to extract this information on a compatible operating system and wi ...

s. WinRAR is a Windows-only program. An Android application called "RAR for Android" is also available. Related programs include the command-line utilities "RAR" and "UNRAR" and versions for

macOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

FreeBSD FreeBSD is a free and open-source Unix-like operating system descended from the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), which was based on Research Unix. The first version of FreeBSD was released in 1993. In 2005, FreeBSD was the most popular ...

, Windows CE, and

MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few ope ...

Evolution

WinRAR and the RAR file format have evolved over time. Support for the archive format RAR5, using the same RAR

file extension A filename extension, file name extension or file extension is a suffix to the name of a computer file (e.g., .txt, .docx, .md). The extension indicates a characteristic of the file contents or its intended use. A filename extension is typically d ...

as earlier versions, was added in version 5.0; the older RAR file format has since been referred to as RAR4. WinRAR versions before 5.0 do not support RAR5 archives; only older versions of WinRAR run on Windows versions prior to Windows Vista, and cannot open RAR5 archives. The RAR5 file format increased the maximum dictionary size to 1 GB; 11 different compression directory sizes from 1 MB to 1 GB are available, with the default in version 5 increased from 4 MB to 32 MB, typically improving compression ratio. AES encryption, when used, is in

CBC mode In cryptography, a block cipher mode of operation is an algorithm that uses a block cipher to provide information security such as confidentiality or authenticity. A block cipher by itself is only suitable for the secure cryptographic transfor ...

and was increased in strength from 128- to 256-bit. Maximum path length for files in RAR and ZIP archives is increased to 2,048 characters. Options added in v5.0 include 256-bit

file-hashing algorithm instead of default 32-bit CRC32, duplicate file detection, NTFS hard and symbolic links, and Quick Open record to allow large archives to be opened faster. The RAR5 file format removed comments for each file (though archive comment still remains), authenticity verification, and specialized compression algorithms for text and multimedia files. RAR5 also changed the file name for split volumes from "archivename.rNN" to "archivename.partNN.rar".

Features

* Creation of packed RAR or ZIP archives. * Unpacking of

ARJ ARJ (Archived by Robert Jung) is a software tool designed by Robert K. Jung for creating high-efficiency data compression, compressed file archives. ARJ is currently on version 2.86 for MS-DOS and 3.20 for Microsoft Windows and supports 16-bit, 3 ...

, BZIP2, CAB, GZ,

ISO ISO is the most common abbreviation for the International Organization for Standardization. ISO or Iso may also refer to: Business and finance * Iso (supermarket), a chain of Danish supermarkets incorporated into the SuperBest chain in 2007 * Iso ...

JAR A jar is a rigid, cylindrical or slightly conical container, typically made of glass, ceramic, or plastic, with a wide mouth or opening that can be closed with a lid, screw cap, lug cap, cork stopper, roll-on cap, crimp-on cap, press-on c ...

, LHA, RAR,

TAR Tar is a dark brown or black viscous liquid of hydrocarbons and free carbon, obtained from a wide variety of organic materials through destructive distillation. Tar can be produced from coal, wood, petroleum, or peat. "a dark brown or black bit ...

, UUE, XZ, Z, ZIP, ZIPX,

ZST ZST (pronounced ''Zest'') is a Japan-based mixed martial arts promotion and sanctioning organization holding amateur and semi-professional MMA events. ZST adopts unique rules in the MMA industry and also used to hold tag-team MMA matches. Hist ...

, 7z, UUE 001 (split) archives, as well as

EXE Exe or EXE may refer to: * .exe, a file extension * exe., abbreviation for executive Places * River Exe, in England * Exe Estuary, in England * Exe Island, in Exeter, England Transportation and vehicles * Exe (locomotive), a British locomotive ...

files containing these archive formats Updated with each new beta test or released version. Current page has versions 4.00 and higher; archived page linked here has versions 3.70–3.93; older archived versions go back to 3.00 *

Checksum A checksum is a small-sized block of data derived from another block of digital data for the purpose of detecting errors that may have been introduced during its transmission or storage. By themselves, checksums are often used to verify data ...

(integrity) verification for ARJ, BZIP2, CAB, GZ, BZIP2, RAR, XZ, ZIP and 7z archives * Multithreaded CPU compression and decompression When creating RAR archives: * Support for maximum file size of 16 EiB, about 1.8 × 10¹⁹ bytes or 18 million TB * Compression dictionary from 1 MiB to 1 GiB (it is limited to 256 MiB on 32-bit editions of Windows, although 32-bit Windows still can decompress archives with 1 GiB dictionary; default size is 32 MiB) * Optional 256-bit BLAKE2 file hash can replace default 32-bit CRC32 file checksum * Optional encryption using AES with a 256-bit key in

, using

key derivation function In cryptography, a key derivation function (KDF) is a cryptographic algorithm that derives one or more secret keys from a secret value such as a master key, a password, or a passphrase using a pseudorandom function (which typically uses a crypto ...

based on

PBKDF2 In cryptography, PBKDF1 and PBKDF2 (Password-Based Key Derivation Function 1 and 2) are key derivation functions with a sliding computational cost, used to reduce vulnerabilities of brute-force attacks. PBKDF2 is part of RSA Laboratories' Publ ...

using

HMAC In cryptography, an HMAC (sometimes expanded as either keyed-hash message authentication code or hash-based message authentication code) is a specific type of message authentication code (MAC) involving a cryptographic hash function and a secret ...

-SHA256 * Optional data redundancy is provided in the form of Reed–Solomon ''recovery records'' and ''recovery volumes'', allowing reconstruction of damaged archives (including reconstruction of entirely missed volumes) * Optional "quick open record" to open RAR files faster * Ability to create multi-volume (split) archives * Ability to create self-extracting files (multi-volume self-extracting archives are supported; the self-extractor can execute commands, such as running a specified program before or after self-extraction) * Support for advanced

NTFS New Technology File System (NTFS) is a proprietary journaling file system developed by Microsoft. Starting with Windows NT 3.1, it is the default file system of the Windows NT family. It superseded File Allocation Table (FAT) as the preferred fil ...

file system options, such as NTFS hard and symbolic links * Support for maximum path length up to 2,048 characters (stored in the

UTF-8 UTF-8 is a variable-width encoding, variable-length character encoding used for electronic communication. Defined by the Unicode Standard, the name is derived from ''Unicode'' (or ''Universal Coded Character Set'') ''Transformation Format 8-bit'' ...

format) * Optional archive comment (stored in the UTF-8 format) * Optional file time stamp preservation: creation, last access, high precision modification times * Optional file deduplication * Advanced backup options, time-stamped files and previous file version retention.

License

The software is distributed as "try before you buy"; it may be used without charge for 40 days. When the period expires, the non-enterprise functionalities remain available, a move intended to discourage piracy. In

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

, a free-to-use personal edition has been provided officially since 2015. Although archiving with the RAR format is proprietary, RARLAB supplies as copyrighted

freeware Freeware is software, most often proprietary, that is distributed at no monetary cost to the end user. There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license, or EULA that defines ''freeware'' unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for the f ...

the

C++ C++ (pronounced "C plus plus") is a high-level general-purpose programming language created by Danish computer scientist Bjarne Stroustrup as an extension of the C programming language, or "C with Classes". The language has expanded significan ...

source code of the current UnRAR unpacker, with a license allowing it to be used in any software, thus enabling others to produce software capable of unpacking, but not creating, RAR archives. RAR for Android is free of charge. It displays advertisements; for a payment they can be disabled. A license for WinRAR does not provide ad-suppression for RAR for Android.

Security

In February 2019, a major security vulnerability in the unacev2.dll library which is used by WinRAR to decompress

ACE An ace is a playing card, die or domino with a single pip. In the standard French deck, an ace has a single suit symbol (a heart, diamond, spade, or club) located in the middle of the card, sometimes large and decorated, especially in the c ...

archives was discovered. Consequently, WinRAR dropped the support for the ACE format from version 5.70. Self-extracting archives created with versions before 5.31 (including the executable installer of WinRAR itself) are vulnerable to

DLL hijacking Dynamic-link library (DLL) is Microsoft's implementation of the shared library concept in the Microsoft Windows and OS/2 operating systems. These libraries usually have the file extension DLL, OCX (for libraries containing ActiveX controls), or ...

: they may load and use DLLs named UXTheme.dll, RichEd32.dll and RichEd20.dll if they are in the same folder as the executable file. It was widely reported that WinRAR v5.21 and earlier had a

remote code execution In computer security, arbitrary code execution (ACE) is an attacker's ability to run any commands or code of the attacker's choice on a target machine or in a target process. An arbitrary code execution vulnerability is a security flaw in softwar ...

(RCE) vulnerability which could allow a remote attacker to insert malicious code into a self-extracting executable (SFX) file being created by a user, "putting over 500 million users of the software at risk". However, examination of the claim revealed that, while the vulnerability existed, the result was merely an SFX which delivered its payload when executed; published responses dismissed the threat, one saying "If you can find suckers who will trust a .exe labelled as self-extracting archive ... then you can trick them into running your smuggled JavaScript".

History

Versions

* Command line RAR and UNRAR were first released in autumn 1993. * Early development version WinRAR 1.54b was released in 1995 as Windows 3.x software. * 3.00 (2002-05): the new RAR3

archive format In computing, an archive file is a computer file that is composed of one or more files along with metadata. Archive files are used to collect multiple data files together into a single file for easier portability and storage, or simply to compress ...

is implemented. The new archives cannot be managed by older versions of WinRAR. Solid compression and WAV audio lossless compression features are added. * 3.41 (2004-12): adds support for Linux .Z archives like GZIP and BZIP2. New options include storing entire file paths and restoring compressed NTFS files. * 3.50 (2005-08): adds support for interface skins and

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, released on April 25, 2005, is an edition of Windows XP for x86-64 personal computers. It is designed to use the expanded 64-bit memory address space provided by the x86-64 architecture. The prima ...

. * 3.60 (2006-08): adds multithreaded version of the compression algorithm, which improves compression speed on systems with multiple

dual-core A multi-core processor is a microprocessor on a single integrated circuit with two or more separate processing units, called cores, each of which reads and executes program instructions. The instructions are ordinary CPU instructions (such ...

hyper-threading Hyper-threading (officially called Hyper-Threading Technology or HT Technology and abbreviated as HTT or HT) is Intel's proprietary simultaneous multithreading (SMT) implementation used to improve parallelization of computations (doing multip ...

-enabled

CPUs A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor or just processor, is the electronic circuitry that executes instructions comprising a computer program. The CPU performs basic arithmetic, logic, controlling, and ...

. * 3.80 (2008-09): adds support for ZIP archives, which contain

Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expre ...

file names in

. * 3.90 (2009-05): adds support for the

x86-64 x86-64 (also known as x64, x86_64, AMD64, and Intel 64) is a 64-bit version of the x86 instruction set, first released in 1999. It introduced two new modes of operation, 64-bit mode and compatibility mode, along with a new 4-level paging mod ...

architecture and

Windows 7 Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, 2009. It is the successor to Windows Vista, released nearly ...

. Multithreaded support is enhanced. * 3.91 is the last release that supports

Valencian Valencian () or Valencian language () is the official, historical and traditional name used in the Valencian Community (Spain), and unofficially in the Carche, El Carche comarca in Región de Murcia, Murcia (Spain), to refer to the Romance lan ...

. * 3.92 is the last release that supports

Serbian Cyrillic The Serbian Cyrillic alphabet ( sr, / , ) is a variation of the Cyrillic script used to write the Serbian language, updated in 1818 by Serbian linguist Vuk Karadžić. It is one of the two alphabets used to write standard modern Serbian, th ...

and

Serbian Latin Gaj's Latin alphabet ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, Gajeva latinica, separator=" / ", Гајева латиница}, ), also known as ( sh-Cyrl, абецеда, ) or ( sh-Cyrl, гајица, link=no, ), is the form of the Latin script used for writing Serb ...

. * 4.00 (2011-03): decompression is sped up by up to 30%.

Windows 98 Windows 98 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of Microsoft Windows operating systems. The second operating system in the 9x line, it is the successor to Windows 95, and was released to ...

Windows ME Windows Millennium Edition, or Windows Me (marketed with the pronunciation of the pronoun "me"), is an operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of Microsoft Windows operating systems. It is the successor to Windo ...

, and

Windows NT Windows NT is a proprietary graphical operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems sc ...

are no longer supported; the minimum Windows version required is

Windows 2000 Windows 2000 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft and oriented towards businesses. It was the direct successor to Windows NT 4.0, and was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), releas ...

. * 4.10 (2012-01): removes all ZIP limitations now allowing unlimited number of files and archive size. WinRAR now also allows creation of multivolume ZIP files. ZIP archives now include

file names. * 4.20 (2012-06): compression speed in SMP mode is increased significantly, but this improvement was made at the expense of increased memory usage. ZIP compression now uses SMP as well. The default SMP mode cannot handle text; text compression is significantly worse unless additional switches are used. Also, Windows 2000 compatibility was removed. * 5.00 (2013-09): the RAR5 archive format is implemented. RAR5 compressed archives cannot be managed by old versions of WinRAR. The RAR 5 format improves

multi-core processor A multi-core processor is a microprocessor on a single integrated circuit with two or more separate processing units, called cores, each of which reads and executes program instructions. The instructions are ordinary CPU instructions (such a ...

utilization, and adds a larger dictionary size of up to 1 GiB with 64-bit WinRAR. Special optional compression algorithms optimized for RGB bitmaps, raw audio files,

Itanium Itanium ( ) is a discontinued family of 64-bit Intel microprocessors that implement the Intel Itanium architecture (formerly called IA-64). Launched in June 2001, Intel marketed the processors for enterprise servers and high-performance computin ...

executables, and

plain text In computing, plain text is a loose term for data (e.g. file contents) that represent only characters of readable material but not its graphical representation nor other objects (floating-point numbers, images, etc.). It may also include a limit ...

, which were supported by earlier versions, are supported only in the older RAR format, not RAR5. Optional optimized compression of x86 executables and

delta compression Delta encoding is a way of storing or transmitting data in the form of '' differences'' (deltas) between sequential data rather than complete files; more generally this is known as data differencing. Delta encoding is sometimes called delta compre ...

(for structured table data) are supported in both file formats. * 5.50 (2017-08): adds support for a master password which can be used to encrypt passwords stored in WinRAR. The default RAR format is changed to version 5. Adds support for decompressing

Lzip lzip is a Free software, free, Command-line interface, command-line tool for the compression of data; it employs the Lempel–Ziv–Markov chain algorithm (LZMA) with a user interface that is familiar to users of usual Unix compression tools, s ...

archives; adds support for high precision file dates, longer file names and larger file sizes for

archives. * 5.60 (2018-06): repairing of protected RAR5 archives was improved. Automatic detection of the encoding of ZIP archive comments. Recognition of GZIP files with arbitrary preceding data as an actual GZIP archive. * 5.70 (2019-02): removes support for ACE archive decompression due to major security vulnerabilities in the unacev2.dll library. * 6.00 (2020-12): "Ignore" and "Ignore All" options are added to read error prompt. "Ignore" allows to continue processing with already read file part only and "Ignore All" does it for all future read errors. * 6.10 (2022-01): Dropped Windows XP support. Added support for unpacking

archives. Maximum recovery record is increased to 1000% of protected data size. * 6.11 (2022-03): Support of Gzip archives with large archive comments has been added; In command line mode, the switch -mes can also be used to suppress the password prompt and abort when adding new files to an encrypted solid archive. * 6.12 (2022-05): CVE-2022-30333 security vulnerability is fixed in Unix RAR versions. WinRAR and Android RAR are not affected.

Operating systems support

More recent versions do not support many older operating systems. Versions supporting older operating systems may still be available, but not maintained: * RAR 2.50 (1999) is the last version that supports MS-DOS and OS/2 on 16-bit

x86 x86 (also known as 80x86 or the 8086 family) is a family of complex instruction set computer (CISC) instruction set architectures initially developed by Intel based on the Intel 8086 microprocessor and its 8088 variant. The 8086 was introd ...

CPUs (

8086 The 8086 (also called iAPX 86) is a 16-bit microprocessor chip designed by Intel between early 1976 and June 8, 1978, when it was released. The Intel 8088, released July 1, 1979, is a slightly modified chip with an external 8-bit data bus (allowi ...

-compatible). * RAR 3.93 is the last version for

and

OS/2 OS/2 (Operating System/2) is a series of computer operating systems, initially created by Microsoft and IBM under the leadership of IBM software designer Ed Iacobucci. As a result of a feud between the two companies over how to position OS/2 ...

IA-32 IA-32 (short for "Intel Architecture, 32-bit", commonly called i386) is the 32-bit version of the x86 instruction set architecture, designed by Intel and first implemented in the 80386 microprocessor in 1985. IA-32 is the first incarnation of ...

CPUs (

80386 The Intel 386, originally released as 80386 and later renamed i386, is a 32-bit microprocessor introduced in 1985. The first versions had 275,000 transistorsfile names longer than the MS-DOS standard of 8.3 characters, in a Windows DOS box (except under Windows NT), and uses the RSX DPMI extender. * WinRAR 2.06 is the last version to support

Windows 3.1 Windows 3.1 is a major release of Microsoft Windows. It was released to manufacturing on April 6, 1992, as a successor to Windows 3.0. Like its predecessors, the Windows 3.1 series ran as a shell on top of MS-DOS. Codenamed Janus, Windows 3 ...

Windows NT 3.1 Windows NT 3.1 is the first major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft, released on July 27, 1993. At the time of Windows NT's release, Microsoft's Windows 3.1 desktop environment had established brand recognition ...

Windows NT 3.5 Windows NT 3.5 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft and oriented towards businesses. It was released on September 21, 1994, as the successor to Windows NT 3.1 and the predecessor to Windows NT 3.51. One ...

, Windows NT 3.51 and

Win32s Win32s is a 32-bit application runtime environment for the Microsoft Windows 3.1 and 3.11 operating systems. It allowed some 32-bit applications to run on the 16-bit operating system using call thunks. A beta version of Win32s was available in Oct ...

. * WinRAR 3.93 is the last version to support

Windows 95 Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of operating systems. The first operating system in the 9x family, it is the successor to Windows 3.1x, and was released to manufacturin ...

, 98, ME, and

NT 4.0 Windows NT 4.0 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft and oriented towards businesses. It is the direct successor to Windows NT 3.51, which was released to manufacturing on July 31, 1996, and then to retail ...

. RAR for Pocket PC 3.93 is the last version for

Windows Mobile Windows Mobile is a discontinued family of mobile operating systems developed by Microsoft for smartphones and personal digital assistants. Its origin dated back to Windows CE in 1996, though Windows Mobile itself first appeared in 2000 as Pock ...

. * WinRAR 4.11 is the last version to support

. *WinRAR 6.02 is the last version to support

Windows XP Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Windows 2000 for high-end and ...

References

External links

rarlab.com

Critical vulnerability in all WinRAR's versions prior to 5.7
{{Compression Software Implementations File archivers 1995 software Windows compression software Windows-only shareware Disk image extractors