Wondering how to open a RAR file on your Mac?
Well, you’re not alone. 🙂
Unzipping a file on a mac computer is user-friendly and intuitive. To unzip files on a mac, simply follow the steps below: Double click the zipped file. The file will automatically be decompressed by Archive Utility into the same folder the compressed file is in. Access the extracted files. Feb 02, 2011 Download Zip Files 4 PC for macOS 10.6.6 or later and enjoy it on your Mac. When you use the 'Create Archive' function on your Mac (to create a zip file), hidden files are inserted into the zip archive. While you cannot see these files on your mac, PC users will be able to see files and folders that would be hidden on the Mac: The '.DSStore.
Many of the files you tend to open these days come in either a ZIP (.zip) file or a RAR (.rar) file. But unlike ZIP files, Apple’s macOS (or OSX) which is the operating system on your Mac does not have the tools needed to open RAR files on its own.Â
You will need a third-party app to open an RAR file and extract its contents. Now there’s tons of apps on your Mac’s App Store that you can download to open RAR files but what most Mac users have found and personally myself has been The Unarchiver app.Â
It’s a free, small in size, and simple app that helps you to unarchive (hence the name) many different kinds of files and not just RAR files. Think of it like a Swiss-army knife which comes in handy for opening many occasions (in this case opening different files you might find).
You can open ZIP, RAR (including v5), 7-Zip, Gzip, B-zip and even some of those older formats such as StuffIt and DiskDoubler. Not just that, it comes in handy too if you’re looking to open ISO or BIN disk images and a few Windows.EXE installers.
In this guide, I’ll show you how you can use The Unarchiver app to open and extract RAR files on Mac OSX. 🙂
How to Extract RAR files on Max OSX:Â 3 Steps
Step 1:Â Go ahead jump into your Mac App Store and look for The Unarchiver (I have added the link for you here). You can also download it from the The Unarchiver site.
Recommended
The developer of Unarchiver does recommend that you download it from his site rather than the Mac App Store because of the limitations and sandboxing requirements that are set by Apple.Â
Which basically means if you want to make sure that you are getting the Unarchiver app with all its latest capabilities, then download it from the Unarchiver site.Â
If not you can still choose to download it from the Mac App Store. Either way will still allow you to extract RAR files on your Mac OSX.
Step 2: Once you’ve installed The Unarchiver app, all that you have to do now to is just to drag and drop your RAR compressed file onto the Unarchiver’s icon.  You can also right click on the RAR file on your Mac and then select Open With and then choose The Unarchiver.Â
Step 3:Â Finally, The Unarchiver will extract the compressed files into that same folder.Â
That’s it! You can use these files like  how you would with any of your other files. 🙂
Help! The Unarchiver is not working for me.
Have you updated your Mac’s operating system (OS) recently?Â
Then you’ll find that Unarchiver might not work as it usually does.Â
Here’s what you can do to fix it.
1.  Reinstalling The Unarchiver.
Try to uninstall the app and then reinstalling from either the Unarchiver website or your Mac App Store. Sometimes the new Mac OS updates might tend to mess up the app, so the uninstall-reinstall should do the trick.
2.  Firewall.
If you still find that Unarchiver doesn’t work for you, then it could most likely be that your Firewall may be getting in the way of the Unarchiver.
Opening Zip Files On Mac
Just give the Unarchiver app a refresh by closing it and re-opening it to see if that has it fixed. If not, make sure that you have allowed Unarchiver to have access to receive incoming connections in your Security & Privacy in your Mac’s Settings.