How to work with rar archives

This note was created on 2020-06-04
This note was last edited on 2023-01-31

rar is a proprietary archive file format that supports data compression, error recovery and file spanning. A ".rar" file may contain one or more files or directories. "rar" utility is used to compress file(s) and "unrar" to extract.

=== Usage ===
Create a ".rar" archive from file(s):
$ rar a archive.rar file1 file2

Note: the same command is used to add new files to existing archive.
Add "-r" to include all dirs/files under the parent directory.
Add "-p" to encrypt file data.
Add "-hp" to encrypt both file data and headers.
Add "-rr10" to add recovery records to the archive. This way up to 10% of the compressed archive can become corrupt or unusable, and it will be able to recover the data through parity. 

Create a ".rar" archive from file, while specifying the compression level (0 being worst, 5 best, and 3 default). For example, level 4:
$ rar a -m4 archive.rar file1

Extract file(s) from archive:
$ unrar x archive.rar

Extract file(s) to specific directory:
$ unrar x archive.rar /home/$USER/Documents

Extract file(s) from archive to stdout:
$ unrar -p archive.rar

List all files in "archive.rar":
$ unrar l archive.rar
Use "v" instead for verbose output.

$ Remove file(s) from archive: 
$ rar d archive.rar file2

Test compressed archive data ("unrar" also can be used):
$ rar t archive.rar