Open a .rar online
Open, browse, preview, or extract a .rar in your browser — no WinRAR, no install, no upload.
Drop your .rar anywhere on this page
Decoded entirely in your browser via WebAssembly — your file is never uploaded.
A .rar is a compressed archive made by WinRAR — it bundles many files into one and shrinks them, usually more tightly than ZIP. To use the files inside you open or extract it, and because RAR is not built into Windows or macOS, "rar online" usually means installing WinRAR or uploading the file to a server that holds a licensed decoder. ZipTool does neither: you drop the .rar on the page and it is decoded right in your browser by a WebAssembly unrar, with nothing uploaded and nothing installed.
You open the page, drop the .rar onto it (or paste a direct URL), and the file tree renders locally. Browse the contents, search by name, and preview text, code, images, audio, video, and PDFs without unpacking anything to disk — then extract when you are ready. The whole decode runs in your tab; the network is used only to load the page (and, once, the decoder module). For the format background, see what is a RAR file.
What you can do with a RAR here
One archive, three workflows — pick the one that matches what you actually need.
- Browse and preview — look inside the RAR without writing anything to disk. Click any entry to read code with syntax highlighting, view images, play audio/video, or render a PDF. This is the online RAR viewer workflow.
- Extract — get the real files out. Use extract-all to write the original files to a folder you choose (Chrome/Edge) or download them as a bundle (Firefox/Safari). See extracting a RAR online.
- Search — filter the file tree by name across the whole archive to find one file in a large RAR without unpacking it.
How to open a RAR in your browser
No WinRAR, no 7-Zip, no terminal. The browser does the unrar locally.
- Go to ZipTool and drag the
.raronto the page (or use the file picker, or paste a URL). - The file tree opens on the left. Expand folders and search to jump to any entry.
- Click a file to preview it inline, or use extract-all to write everything to a folder.
- Nothing is uploaded — confirm it by opening a RAR and turning off your internet; browsing, previewing, and extracting keep working.
Why RAR is different from ZIP
RAR was created by Eugene Roshal and is developed by RARLAB. It typically beats ZIP on compression ratio — especially on multimedia — and supports solid archives, recovery records, and split volumes. The trade-off is that the format is proprietary: creating a .rar requires WinRAR, and shipping a decoder rests on RARLAB licensing the unrar code. That licensing is exactly what lets ZipTool run a WebAssembly unrar legally, in your browser, instead of uploading your file to a server that holds a licensed copy.
A practical consequence: you can open and extract a RAR here, but you cannot create one — RAR encoding is proprietary to WinRAR. ZipTool can create and convert to ZIP, TAR, and TAR.GZ instead — to turn a RAR into a standard ZIP directly in your browser, see convert RAR to ZIP. See create a zip online. For the full walkthrough on opening RAR across platforms, see how to open a RAR file.
Honest limits
RAR has features the in-browser decoder does not cover. These are real gaps, not marketing hedging.
- Encrypted RAR is not supported. Password-protected RAR files cannot be decoded in the browser. (ZipTool can decrypt password-protected ZIP and 7z, but not RAR.) Use WinRAR, 7-Zip, or The Unarchiver for encrypted RAR.
- Split / multi-volume RARs are not supported. A RAR spread across
.part1.rar,.part2.rar, … needs reassembly by a tool that understands the spanning format. - Extract-to-folder needs Chrome or Edge. Writing a real directory tree uses the File System Access API, absent in Firefox and Safari; there you download the contents as a zip instead.
- You cannot create a RAR. RAR encoding is proprietary to WinRAR.
Frequently asked questions
How do I open a .rar file online?
Open the page and drop your .rar onto it. ZipTool decodes the archive in your browser using a WebAssembly unrar — no WinRAR, no install, no upload. The file tree appears, and you can browse, search, preview, and extract the contents. For the full steps, see how to open a RAR file.
Can I open a RAR without WinRAR?
Yes. ZipTool opens a .rar entirely in your browser, so you never need WinRAR. On a desktop, 7-Zip (Windows) and The Unarchiver or Keka (macOS) also read RARs, and unrar works on Linux — but the browser path needs no install at all.
Do you upload my RAR?
No. The RAR is decoded entirely in your browser using a WebAssembly unrar module; your file contents are never sent to a server, never stored, and never handed to a third party. The only network traffic is the page itself and a one-time fetch of the decoder. Confirm it in DevTools and by disconnecting from the internet after the page loads — everything keeps working.
Can it extract a password-protected RAR?
No. Encrypted RAR files are not supported in the browser by this tool — use WinRAR, 7-Zip, or The Unarchiver for those. ZipTool can decrypt password-protected ZIP and 7z archives when you supply the password, but not RAR.
Is opening a RAR online free?
Yes. Browsing, searching, previewing, and extracting a RAR is completely free, with no account and no install. The decoder runs locally; there is no per-file paywall.