User's Manual
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
RAR 6.23 console version
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Welcome to the RAR Archiver!
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Introduction
~~~~~~~~~~~~
RAR is a console application allowing to manage archive files
in command line mode. RAR provides compression, encryption,
data recovery and many other functions described in this manual.
RAR supports only RAR format archives, which have .rar file name
extension by default. ZIP and other formats are not supported.
Even if you specify .zip extension when creating an archive, it will
still be in RAR format. Windows users may install WinRAR, which supports
more archive types including RAR and ZIP formats.
WinRAR provides both graphical user interface and command line mode.
While console RAR and GUI WinRAR have the similar command line syntax,
some differences exist. So it is recommended to use this rar.txt manual
for console RAR (rar.exe in case of Windows version) and winrar.chm
WinRAR help file for GUI WinRAR (winrar.exe).
Configuration file
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
RAR and UnRAR for Unix read configuration information from .rarrc file
in a user's home directory (stored in HOME environment variable)
or in /etc directory.
RAR and UnRAR for Windows read configuration information from rar.ini file,
placed in the same directory as the rar.exe file.
This file can contain the following string:
switches=<any RAR switches separated by spaces>
For example:
switches=-m5 -s
It is also possible to specify separate switch sets for individual
RAR commands using the following syntax:
switches_<command>=<any RAR switches separated by spaces>
For example:
switches_a=-m5 -s
switches_x=-o+
Environment variable
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Default parameters may be added to the RAR command line by establishing
an environment variable "RAR".
For instance, in Unix following lines may be added to your profile:
RAR='-s -md1024'
export RAR
RAR will use this string as default parameters in the command line and
will create "solid" archives with 1024 MB sliding dictionary size.
RAR handles options with priority as following:
command line switches highest priority
switches in the RAR variable lower priority
switches saved in configuration file lowest priority
Log file
~~~~~~~~
If switch -ilog is specified in the command line or configuration file,
RAR will write informational messages about errors encountered while
processing archives into a log file. Read the switch -ilog description
for more details.
The file order list for solid archiving - rarfiles.lst
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
rarfiles.lst contains a user-defined file list, which tells RAR
the order in which to add files to a solid archive. It may contain
file names, wildcards and special entry - $default. The default
entry defines the place in order list for files not matched
with other entries in this file. The comment character is ';'.
In Windows this file should be placed in the same directory as RAR
or in %APPDATA%\WinRAR directory, in Unix - to the user's home directory
or in /etc.
Tips to provide improved compression and speed of operation:
- similar files should be grouped together in the archive;
- frequently accessed files should be placed at the beginning.
Normally masks placed nearer to the top of list have a higher priority,
but there is an exception from this rule. If rarfiles.lst contains such
two masks that all files matched by one mask are also matched by another,
that mask which matches a smaller subset of file names will have higher
priority regardless of its position in the list. For example, if you have
*.cpp and f*.cpp masks, f*.cpp has a higher priority, so the position of
'filename.cpp' will be chosen according to 'f*.cpp', not '*.cpp'.
RAR command line syntax
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Syntax
RAR <command> [ -<switches> ] <archive> [ <@listfiles...> ]
[ <files...> ] [ <path_to_extract\> ]
Description
Command is a single character or string specifying an action to be
performed by RAR. Switches are designed to modify the way RAR performs
such action. Other parameters are archive name and files to be archived
or extracted.
Listfiles are plain text files containing names of files to process.
File names must start at the first column. It is possible to
put comments to the listfile after // characters. For example,
you can create backup.lst containing the following strings:
c:\work\doc\*.txt //backup text documents
c:\work\image\*.bmp //backup pictures
c:\work\misc
and then run:
rar a backup @backup.lst
If you wish to read file names from stdin (standard input),
specify the empty listfile name (just @).
By default, console RAR uses the single byte encoding in list files,
but it can be redefined with -sc<charset>l switch.
You can specify both usual file names and list files in the same
command line. If neither files nor listfiles are specified,
then *.* is implied and RAR will process all files.
path_to_extract includes the destination directory name followed by
a path separator character. For example, it can be c:\dest\ in Windows
or data/ in Unix. It specifies the directory to place extracted files
in 'x' and 'e' commands. This directory is created by RAR if it does not
exist yet. Alternatively it can be set with -op<path> switch.
Many RAR commands, such as extraction, test or list, allow to use
wildcards in archive name. If no extension is specified in archive
mask, RAR assumes .rar, so * means all archives with .rar extension.
If you need to process all archives without extension, use *. mask.
*.* mask selects all files. Wildcards in archive name are not allowed
when archiving and deleting.
In Unix you need to enclose RAR command line parameters containing
wildcards in single or double quotes to prevent their expansion
by Unix shell. For example, this command will extract *.asm files
from all *.rar archives in current directory:
rar e '*.rar' '*.asm'
Command could be any of the following:
a Add files to archive.
Examples:
1) add all *.hlp files from the current directory to
the archive help.rar:
rar a help *.hlp
2) archive all files from the current directory and subdirectories
to 362000 bytes size solid, self-extracting volumes
and add the recovery record to each volume:
rar a -r -v362 -s -sfx -rr save
Because no file names are specified, all files (*) are assumed.
3) as a special exception, if directory name is specified as
an argument and if directory name does not include file masks
and trailing path separator, the entire contents of the directory
and all subdirectories will be added to the archive even
if switch -r is not specified.
The following command will add all files from the directory
Bitmaps and its subdirectories to the RAR archive Pictures.rar:
rar a Pictures.rar Bitmaps
4) if directory name includes the trailing path separator,
normal rules apply and you need to specify switch -r to process
its subdirectories.
The following command will add all files from directory Bitmaps,
but not from its subdirectories, because switch -r is not
specified:
rar a Pictures.rar Bitmaps\*
c Add archive comment. Comments are displayed while the archive is
being processed. Comment length is limited to 256 KB.
Examples:
rar c distrib.rar
Also comments may be added from a file using -z[file] switch.
The following command adds a comment from info.txt file:
rar c -zinfo.txt dummy
ch Change archive parameters.
This command can be used with most of archive modification
switches to modify archive parameters. It is especially
convenient for switches like -cl, -cu, -tl, which do not
have a dedicated command.
It is not able to recompress, encrypt or decrypt archive data
and it cannot merge or create volumes. If no switches are
specified, 'ch' command just copies the archive data without
modification.
If used with -amr switch to restore the saved archive name
and time, other archive modification switches are ignored.
Example:
Set archive time to latest file:
rar ch -tl files.rar
cw Write archive comment to specified file.
Format of output file depends on -sc switch.
If output file name is not specified, comment data will be
sent to stdout.
Examples:
1) rar cw arc comment.txt
2) rar cw -scuc arc unicode.txt
3) rar cw arc
d Delete files from archive. If this command removes all files
from archive, the empty archive is removed.
e Extract files without archived paths.
Extract files excluding their path component, so all files
are created in the same destination directory.
Use 'x' command if you wish to extract full pathnames.
Example:
rar e -or html.rar *.css css\
extract all *.css files from html.rar archive to 'css' directory
excluding archived paths. Rename extracted files automatically
in case several files have the same name.
f Freshen files in archive. Updates archived files older
than files to add. This command will not add new files
to the archive.
i[i|c|h|t]=<string>
Find string in archives.
Supports following optional parameters:
i - case insensitive search (default);
c - case sensitive search;
h - hexadecimal search;
t - use ANSI, UTF-8, UTF-16 and OEM (Windows only)
character tables;
If no parameters are specified, it is possible to use
the simplified command syntax i<string> instead of i=<string>
It is allowed to specify 't' modifier with other parameters,
for example, ict=string performs case sensitive search
using all mentioned above character tables.
Examples:
1) rar "ic=first level" -r c:\*.rar *.txt
Perform case sensitive search of "first level" string
in *.txt files in *.rar archives on the disk c:
2) rar ih=f0e0aeaeab2d83e3a9 -r e:\texts\*.rar
Search for hex string f0 e0 ae ae ab 2d 83 e3 a9
in rar archives in e:\texts directory.
k Lock archive.
RAR cannot modify locked archives, so locking important archives
prevents their accidental modification by RAR. Such protection
might be especially useful in case of RAR commands processing
archives in groups.
This command is not intended or able to prevent modification
by other tools or willful third party. It implements a safety
measure only for accidental data change by RAR.
Example:
rar k final.rar
l[t[a],b]
List archive contents [technical [all], bare].
'l' command lists archived file attributes, size, date,
time and name, one file per line. If file is encrypted,
line starts from '*' character.
'lt' displays the detailed file information in multiline mode.
This information includes file checksum value, host OS,
compression options and other parameters.
'lta' provide the detailed information not only for files,
but also for service headers like NTFS streams
or file security data.
'lb' lists bare file names with path, one per line,
without any additional information.
You can use -v switch to list contents of all volumes
in volume set: rar l -v vol.part1.rar
Commands 'lt', 'lta' and 'lb' are equal to 'vt', 'vta'
and 'vb' correspondingly.
m[f] Move to archive [files only]. Moving files and directories
results in the files and directories being erased upon
successful completion of the packing operation. Directories will
not be removed if 'f' modifier is used and/or '-ed' switch is
applied.
p Print file to stdout.
Send unpacked file data to stdout. Informational messages
are suppressed with this command, so they are not mixed
with file data.
r Repair archive. Archive repairing is performed in two stages.
First, the damaged archive is searched for a recovery record
(see 'rr' command). If archive contains the previously added
recovery record and if damaged data area is continuous
and smaller than error correction code size in recovery record,
chance of successful archive reconstruction is high.
When this stage has been completed, a new archive is created,
named as fixed.arcname.rar, where 'arcname' is the original
(damaged) archive name.
If broken archive does not contain a recovery record or if
archive is not completely recovered due to major damage,
second stage is performed. During this stage only the archive
structure is reconstructed and it is impossible to recover
files which fail checksum validation, it is still possible,
however, to recover undamaged files, which were inaccessible
due to the broken archive structure. Mostly this is useful
for non-solid archives. This stage is never efficient
for archives with encrypted file headers, which can be repaired
only if recovery record is present.
When the second stage is completed, the reconstructed archive
is saved as rebuilt.arcname.rar, where 'arcname' is
the original archive name.
By default, repaired archives are created in the current
directory, but you can append an optional destpath\ parameter
to specify another destination directory.
Example:
rar r buggy.rar c:\fixed\
repair buggy.rar and place the result to 'c:\fixed' directory.
rc Reconstruct missing and damaged volumes using recovery volumes
(.rev files). You need to specify any existing .rar or .rev
volume as the archive name.
Example:
rar rc backup.part03.rar
Read 'rv' command description for information about
recovery volumes.
rn Rename archived files.
The command syntax is:
rar rn <arcname> <srcname1> <destname1> ... <srcnameN> <destnameN>
For example, the following command:
rar rn data.rar readme.txt readme.bak info.txt info.bak
will rename readme.txt to readme.bak and info.txt to info.bak
in the archive data.rar.
It is allowed to use wildcards in the source and destination
names for simple name transformations like changing file
extensions. For example:
rar rn data.rar *.txt *.bak
will rename all *.txt files to *.bak.
RAR does not check if the destination file name is already
present in the archive, so you need to be careful to avoid
duplicated names. It is especially important when using
wildcards. Such a command is potentially dangerous, because
a wrong wildcard may corrupt all archived names.
rr[N] Add data recovery record. Optionally, redundant information
(recovery record) may be added to archive. While it increases
the archive size, it helps to recover archived files in case of
disk failure or data loss of other kind, provided that damage
is not too severe. Such damage recovery can be done with
command "r" (repair).
RAR 4.x and RAR 5.0 archives use different recovery record
structure and algorithms.
RAR 4.x recovery record is based on XOR algorithm.
You can specify 4.x record size as a number of recovery sectors
or as a percent of archive size. To specify a number of sectors
just add it directly after 'rr', like 'rr1000' for 1000 sectors.
To use a percent append 'p' or '%' modifier after the percent
number, such as 'rr5p' or 'rr5%' for 5%. Note that in Windows
.bat and .cmd files it is necessary to use 'rr5%%' instead of
'rr5%', because the command processor treats the single '%'
as the start of a batch file parameter, so it might be more
convenient to use 'p' instead of '%' in this case.
RAR 4.x recovery sectors are 512 bytes long. If damaged area
is continuous, every sector helps to recover 512 bytes of
damaged information. This value may be lower in cases of
multiple damage. Maximum number of recovery sectors is 524288.
Size of 4.x recovery record may be approximately determined as
<archive size>/256 + <number of recovery sectors>*512 bytes
and cannot exceed the protected data size or 256 MB,
whatever is less.
RAR 5.0 recovery record uses Reed-Solomon error correction codes.
Its ability to repair continuous damage is about the same
as for RAR 4.x, allowing to restore slightly less data than
recovery record size. But it is more efficient than RAR 4.x
record in case of multiple damaged areas and shifted data
positions.
RAR 5.0 record does not use 512 byte sectors and you can specify
its size only as a percent of archive size. Even if '%' or 'p'
modifier is not present, RAR treats the value as a percent
in case of RAR 5.0 format, so both 'rr5' and 'rr5p' mean 5%.
Due to service data overhead the actual resulting recovery record
size only approximately matches the user defined percent
and difference is larger for smaller archives.
Maximum allowed RAR 5.0 recovery record size is 1000%.
Larger recovery records are processed slower both when creating
and repairing.
RAR 5.0 recovery record is more resistant to damage of recovery
record itself and can utilize a partially corrupt recovery
record data. Note, though, that 'R' repair command does not fix
broken blocks in recovery record. Only file data are corrected.
After successful archive repair, you may need to create a new
recovery record for saved files.
If you use the plain 'rr' command without optional parameter,
RAR will set the recovery record size to 3% of archive size
by default.
While the recovery record improves chances to repair damaged
archives, it does not guarantee the successful recovery.
Consider combining the recovery record feature with making
multiple archive copies to different media for important data.
Example:
rar rr5p arcname
add the recovery record of 5% of archive size.
rv[N] Create recovery volumes (.rev files), which can be later
used to reconstruct missing and damaged files in a volume
set. This command makes sense only for multivolume archives
and you need to specify the name of the first volume
in the set as the archive name. For example:
rar rv3 data.part01.rar
This feature may be useful for backups or, for example,
when you posted a multivolume archive to a newsgroup
and a part of subscribers did not receive some of the files.
Reposting recovery volumes instead of usual volumes
may reduce the total number of files to repost.
Each recovery volume is able to reconstruct one missing
or damaged RAR volume. For example, if you have 30 volumes
and 3 recovery volumes, you are able to reconstruct any
3 missing volumes. If the number of .rev files is less than
the number of missing volumes, reconstructing is impossible.
The total number of usual and recovery volumes must not
exceed 255 for RAR 4.x and 65535 for RAR 5.0 archive format.
Original RAR volumes must not be modified after creating
recovery volumes. Recovery algorithm uses data stored both
in REV files and in RAR volumes to rebuild missing RAR volumes.
So if you modify RAR volumes, for example, lock them, after
creating REV files, recovery process will fail.
Additionally to recovery data, RAR 5.0 recovery volumes
also store service information such as checksums of protected
RAR files. So they are slightly larger than RAR volumes
which they protect. If you plan to copy individual RAR and REV
files to some removable media, you need to take it into account
and specify RAR volume size by a few kilobytes smaller
than media size.
The optional <N> parameter specifies a number of recovery
volumes to create. It must be less than the total number of
RAR volumes in the set for RAR 4.x and must not be larger
than tenfold amount of RAR volumes for RAR 5.0 format.
Values exceeding the threshold are adjusted automatically.
You may also append a percent or 'p' character to this parameter,
in such case the number of creating .rev files will be equal to
this percent taken from the total number of RAR volumes.
For example:
rar rv15% data.part01.rar
If <N> parameter is omitted, it is set to 10%.
RAR reconstructs missing and damaged volumes either when
using 'rc' command or automatically, if it cannot locate
the next volume and finds the required number of .rev files
when unpacking.
Original copies of damaged volumes are renamed to *.bad
before reconstruction. For example, volname.part03.rar
will be renamed to volname.part03.rar.bad.
s[name] Convert archive to SFX. The archive is merged with a SFX module
(using a module in file default.sfx or specified in the switch).
In the Windows version default.sfx should be placed in the
same directory as the rar.exe, in Unix - in the user's
home directory, in /usr/lib or /usr/local/lib.
s- Remove SFX module from the already existing SFX archive.
RAR creates a new archive without SFX module, the original
SFX archive is not deleted.
t Test archive files. This command performs a dummy file
extraction, writing nothing to the output stream, in order to
validate the specified file(s).
Examples:
Test archives in current directory:
rar t *
or for Unix:
rar t '*'
User may test archives in all sub-directories, starting
with the current path:
rar t -r *
or for Unix:
rar t -r '*'
u Update files in archive. Adds files not yet in the archive
and updates archived files that are older than files to add.
v[t[a],b]
Verbosely list archive contents [technical [all], bare].
'v' command lists archived file attributes, size, packed size,
compression ratio, date, time, checksum and name, one file
per line. If file is encrypted, line starts from '*' character.
For BLAKE2sp checksum only two first and one last symbol are
displayed.
'vt' displays the detailed file information in multiline mode.
This information includes file checksum value, host OS,
compression options and other parameters.
'vta' provide the detailed information not only for files,
but also for service headers like NTFS streams
or file security data.
'vb' lists bare file names with path, one per line,
without any additional information.
You can use -v switch to list contents of all volumes
in volume set: rar v -v vol.part1.rar
Commands 'vt', 'vta' and 'vb' are equal to 'lt', 'lta'
and 'lb' correspondingly.
x Extract files with full path.
Examples:
1) extract 10cents.txt to current directory not displaying
the archive comment
rar x -c- dime 10cents.txt
2) extract *.txt from docs.rar to c:\docs directory
rar x docs.rar *.txt c:\docs\
3) extract the entire contents of docs.rar to current directory
rar x docs.rar
Switches (used in conjunction with a command):
-? Display help on commands and switches.
Same as none or illegal command line option are entered.
-- Stop switches scanning
This switch tells to RAR that there are no more switches
in the command line. It could be useful, if either archive
or file name starts from '-' character. Without '--' switch
such a name would be treated as a switch.
Example:
add all files from the current directory to the solid archive
'-StrangeName'
RAR a -s -- -StrangeName
-@[+] Disable [enable] file lists
RAR treats command line parameters starting from '@' character
as file lists. So by default, RAR attempts to read 'filename'
filelist, when encountering '@filename' parameter.
But if '@filename' file exists, RAR treats the parameter
as '@filename' file instead of reading the file list.
Switch -@[+] allows to avoid this ambiguity and strictly
define how to handle parameters starting from '@' character.
If you specify -@, all such parameters found after this switch
will be considered as file names, not file lists.
If you specify -@+, all such parameters found after this switch
will be considered as file lists, not file names.
This switch does not affect processing parameters located
before it.
Example:
test the archived file '@home'
rar t -@ notes.rar @home
-ac Clear Archive attribute after compression or extraction
(Windows version only).
If -ac is specified when archiving, "Archive" file attribute
is cleared for successfully compressed files. When extracting,
-ac will clear "Archive" attribute for extracted files.
This switch does not affect directory attributes.
-ad[1,2]
Alternate destination path.
This option may be useful when unpacking a group of archives.
Switches -ad and -ad1 create a separate directory for files
unpacked from each archive. These separate directories are
created in destination directory for -ad and in each archive's
directory for -ad1.
Switch -ad2 places unpacked files directly to each archive's
directory. Separate directories are not created.
Destination directory parameter is ignored for -ad1 and -ad2
switches.
Examples:
1) rar x -ad *.rar data\
RAR will create subdirectories below 'data'
for every unpacking archive.
2) rar x -r -ad1 arc\*.rar
RAR will recursively scan 'arc' directory for *.rar archives
and create subdirectories in each archive's directory.
-ag[format]
Generate archive name using the current date and time.
Appends the current date string to an archive name when
creating or processing an archive. Useful for daily backups.
Format of the appending string is defined by the optional
"format" parameter or by "YYYYMMDDHHMMSS" if this parameter
is absent. The format string may include the following
characters:
Y - year
M - month
MMM - month name as text string (Jan, Feb, etc.)
W - a week number (a week starts with Monday)
A - day of week number (Monday is 1, Sunday - 7)
D - day of month
E - day of year
H - hours
M - minutes (first two 'M' after hours treated as minutes)
I - minutes (treated as minutes regardless of hours position)
S - seconds
N - archive number. RAR searches for already existing archive
with generated name and if found, increments the archive
number until generating a unique name. 'N' format character
is not supported when creating volumes.
When performing non-archiving operations like extracting,
RAR selects the existing archive preceding the first
unused name or sets N to 1 if no such archive exists.
Each of format string characters listed above represents only
one character added to archive name. For example, use WW for
two digit week number or YYYY to define four digit year.
If the first character in the format string is '+', positions
of the date string and base archive name are exchanged,
so a date will precede an archive name.
If the first character in the format string is 'F', the rest of
string specifies the default format string for -ag switch.
Such -agf<default_format> switch has a practical value only
if placed to rar.ini configuration file or RAR environment
variable. For example, if we set RAR environment variable to
-agfYYYY-MMM-DD, we can use -ag without a parameter with
YYYY-MMM-DD format string assumed.
The format string may contain optional text enclosed in '{'
and '}' characters. This text is inserted into archive name.
All other characters are added to an archive name without
changes.
If you need to process an already existing archive, be careful
with -ag switch. Depending on the format string and time passed
since previous -ag use, generated and existing archive names
may mismatch. In this case RAR will create or open a new archive
instead of processing the already existing one. You may use
-log switch to write the generated archive name to a file
and then read it from file for further processing.
Examples:
1) use the default YYYYMMDDHHMMSS format
rar a -ag backup
2) use DD-MMM-YY format
rar t -agDD-MMM-YY backup
3) use YYYYMMDDHHMM format, place date before 'backup'
rar a -ag+YYYYMMDDHHMM backup
4) use YYYY-WW-A format, include fields description
rar a -agYYYY{year}-WW{week}-A{wday} backup
5) use YYYYMMDD and the archive number. It allows to generate
unique names even when YYYYMMDD format mask used more than
once in the same day
rar a -agYYYYMMDD-NN backup
-ai Ignore file attributes.
If this switch is used when extracting, RAR does not set
general file attributes stored in archive to extracted files.
This switch preserves attributes assigned by operating system
to a newly created file.
If this switch is used when archiving, predefined values,
typical for file and directory, are stored instead of actual
attributes.
In Windows it affects archive, system, hidden and read-only
attributes. in Unix - user, group, and other file permissions.
-am[s,r]
Archive name and time [save, restore]
Switch -ams preserves the archive metadata, which includes
the original archive name and creation time. It can be used
with archive modification commands, such as 'a' or 'ch'.
Saved metadata is displayed in header of 'l' and 'v' archive
list commands.
If used together with -tk or -tl switches, -ams saves
the archive modification time set by these switches.
Switch -amr renames an archive to saved name. Also it sets
the stored time as the archive creation and modification time
in Windows and as the archive modification time in Unix.
It can be used together with 'ch' command only, which ignores
all other archive modification switches if -amr is specified.
Switch -am without 's' and 'r' modifiers is treated as -ams.
Examples:
1) create files.rar and save its metadata
rar a -am files.rar
2) restore the original name of myfiles.rar
rar ch -amr myfiles.rar
-ao Add files with "Archive" attribute set
(Windows version only).
If -ao is used when archiving, only files with "Archive"
file attribute will be added to archive. This switch does not
affect directories, so all matching directories are added
regardless of their attributes. You can also specify -ed switch
if you prefer to omit all directory records.
Example:
add all disk C: files with "Archive" attribute set
to the 'f:backup' and clear files "Archive" attribute
rar a -r -ac -ao f:backup c:\*.*
-ap<path>
Set path inside archive. This path is merged to file
names when adding files to an archive and removed
from file names when extracting.
For example, if you wish to add the file 'readme.txt'
to the directory 'DOCS\ENG' of archive 'release',
you may run:
rar a -apDOCS\ENG release readme.txt
or to extract 'ENG' to the current directory:
rar x -apDOCS release DOCS\ENG\*.*
-as Synchronize archive contents
If this switch is used when archiving, those archived files
which are not present in the list of the currently added
files, will be deleted from the archive. It is convenient to
use this switch in combination with -u (update) to synchronize
contents of archive and archiving directory.
For example, after the command:
rar a -u -as backup sources\*.cpp
the archive 'backup.rar' will contain only *.cpp files
from directory 'sources', all other files will be deleted
from the archive. It looks similar to creating a new archive,
but with one important exception: if no files are modified
since the last backup, the operation is performed much faster
than the creation of a new archive.
-cfg- Ignore configuration file and RAR environment variable.
-cl Convert file names to lower case.
-cu Convert file names to upper case.
-c- Disable comments show.
-df Delete files after archiving
Move files to archive. This switch in combination with
the command "A" performs the same action as the command "M".
-dh Open shared files
Allows to process files opened by other applications
for writing.
This switch helps if an application allowed read access
to file, but if all types of file access are prohibited,
the file open operation will still fail.
This option could be dangerous, because it allows
to archive a file, which at the same time is modified
by another application, so use it carefully.
-dr Delete files to Recycle Bin
Delete files after archiving and place them to Recycle Bin.
Available in Windows version only.
-ds Do not sort files while adding to a solid archive.
-dw Wipe files after archiving
Delete files after archiving. Before deleting file data
are overwritten by zero bytes to prevent recovery of deleted
files, file is truncated and renamed to temporary name.
Please be aware that such approach is designed for usual
hard disks, but may fail to overwrite the original file data
on solid state disks, as result of SSD wear leveling technology
and more complicated data addressing.
-ed Do not add empty directories
This switch indicates that directory records are not to be
stored in the created archive. When extracting such archives,
RAR creates non-empty directories based on paths of files
contained in them. Information about empty directories is
lost. All attributes of non-empty directories except a name
(access rights, streams, etc.) will be lost as well, so use
this switch only if you do not need to preserve such information.
If -ed is used with 'm' command or -df switch, RAR will not
remove empty directories.
-ep Exclude paths from names. This switch enables files to be
added to an archive without including the path information.
This could result in multiple files with the same name
existing in the archive.
If used when extracting, archived paths are ignored
for extracted files, so all files are created in the same
destination directory.
-ep1 Exclude base dir from names. Do not store or extract the path
entered in the command line. Ignored if path includes wildcards.
Examples:
1) add all files and directories from 'tmp' directory to archive
'test', but exclude 'tmp\' from archived names path:
rar a -ep1 -r test tmp\*
This is an equivalent to commands:
cd tmp
rar a -r ..\test
cd ..
2) extract files matching images\* mask to dest\ directory,
but remove 'images\' from paths of created files:
rar x -ep1 data images\* dest\
-ep2 Expand paths to full. Store full file paths (except the drive
letter and leading path separator) when archiving.
-ep3 Expand paths to full including the drive letter.
Windows version only.
This switch stores full file paths including the drive
letter if used when archiving. Drive separators (colons)
are replaced by underscore characters.
If you use -ep3 when extracting, it will change
underscores back to colons and create unpacked files
in their original directories and disks. If the user
also specified a destination path, it will be ignored.
It also converts UNC paths from \\server\share to
__server\share when archiving and restores them to
the original state when extracting.
This switch can help to backup several disks to the same
archive. For example, you may run:
rar a -ep3 -r backup.rar c:\ d:\ e:\
to create backup and:
rar x -ep3 backup.rar
to restore it.
But be cautious and use -ep3 only if you are sure that
extracting archive does not contain any malicious files.
In other words, use it if you have created an archive yourself
or completely trust its author. This switch allows to overwrite
any file in any location on your computer including important
system files and should normally be used only for the purpose
of backup and restore.
-ep4<path>
Exclude the path prefix from names.
If this switch is used when archiving, the specified path
is excluded from archived names if it is found in the beginning
of such name, but does not match the entire name. Comparison
is performed with names already prepared to store in archive,
with removed drive letters and leading path separators.
For example:
rar a -ep4texts\books archive c:\texts\books\technical
removes "text\books" from archived names, so they start
from 'technical'. Since comparison is performed with names,
as they are stored in archive, we can't use -ep4c:\texts\books.
If this switch is used when extracting, it works similarly to
-ap<path> switch. Path is removed if it is present
in the beginning of archived file name. For example:
rar x -ep4texts\books archive
removes 'texts\books' from those archived paths,
which start from it.
-e[+]<attr>
Specifies file exclude or include attributes mask.
<attr> is a number in the decimal, octal (with leading '0')
or hex (with leading '0x') format.
By default, without '+' sign before <attr>, this switch
defines the exclude mask. So if result of bitwise AND between
<attr> and file attributes is nonzero, file would not be
processed.
If '+' sign is present, it specifies the include mask.
Only those files which have at least one attribute specified
in the mask will be processed.
In Windows version is also possible to use symbols D, S, H,
A and R instead of a digital mask to denote directories
and files with system, hidden, archive and read-only attributes.
The order in which the attributes are given is not significant.
Unix version supports D and V symbols to define directory
and device attributes.
It is allowed to specify both -e<attr> and -e+<attr>
in the same command line.
Examples:
1) archive only directory names without their contents
rar a -r -e+d dirs
2) do not compress system and hidden files:
rar a -esh files
3) do not extract read-only files:
rar x -er files
-f Freshen files. May be used with archive extraction or creation.
The command string "a -f" is equivalent to the command 'f', you
could also use the switch '-f' with the commands 'm' or 'mf'. If
the switch '-f' is used with the commands 'x' or 'e', then only
old files would be replaced with new versions extracted from the
archive.
-hp[p] Encrypt both file data and headers.
This switch is similar to -p[pwd], but switch -p encrypts
only file data and leaves other information like file names
visible. This switch encrypts all sensitive archive areas
including file data, file names, sizes, attributes, comments
and other blocks, so it provides a higher security level.
Without a password it is impossible to view even the list of
files in archive encrypted with -hp.
Example:
rar a -hpfGzq5yKw secret report.txt
will add the file report.txt to the encrypted archive
secret.rar using the password 'fGzq5yKw'
-ht[b|c]
Select hash type [BLAKE2,CRC32] for file checksum.
File data integrity in RAR archive is protected by checksums
calculated and stored for every archived file.
By default, RAR uses CRC32 function to calculate the checksum.
RAR 5.0 archive format also allows to select BLAKE2sp hash
function instead of CRC32.
Specify -htb switch for BLAKE2sp and -htc for CRC32 hash function.
Since CRC32 is the default algorithm, you may need -htc only to
override -htb in RAR configuration.
CRC32 output is 32 bit length. While CRC32 properties are
suitable to detect most of unintentional data errors,
it is not reliable enough to verify file data identity.
In other words, if two files have the same CRC32,
it does not guarantee that file contents is the same.
BLAKE2sp output is 256 bit. Being a cryptographically strong
hash function, it practically guarantees that if two files
have the same value of BLAKE2sp, their contents is the same.
BLAKE2sp error detection property is also more reliable than
in shorter CRC32.
Since BLAKE2sp output is longer, resulting archive is
slightly larger for -htb switch.
If archive headers are unencrypted (no switch -hp), checksums
for encrypted RAR 5.0 files are modified using a special
password dependent algorithm, to make impossible guessing
file contents based on checksums. Do not expect such encrypted
file checksums to match usual CRC32 and BLAKE2sp values.
This switch is supported only by RAR 5.0 format, so you
need to use -ma switch with it.
You can see checksums of archived files using 'vt' or 'lt'
commands.
Example:
rar a -ma -htb lists.rar *.lst
will add *.lst to lists.rar using BLAKE2sp for file checksums.
-id[c,d,n,p,q]
Display or disable messages.
Switch -idc disables the copyright string.
Switch -idd disables "Done" string at the end of operation.
Switch -idn disables archived names output when creating,
testing or extracting an archive. It disables directory creation
messages when unpacking a file to non-existing directory.
It can affect some other archive processing commands as well.
It does not hide other messages and total percentage indicator.
Minor visual artifacts, such as percentage indicator overwriting
few last characters of error messages, are possible with -idn.
Switch -idp disables the percentage indicator.
Switch -idq turns on the quiet mode, so only error messages
and questions are displayed.
It is allowed to use several modifiers at once,
so switch -idcdp is correct.
-ieml[.][addr]
Send archive by email. Windows version only.
Attach an archive created or updated by the add command
to email message. You need to have a MAPI compliant email
client to use this switch (most modern email programs
support MAPI interface).
You may enter a destination email address directly
in the switch or leave it blank. In the latter case you
will be asked for it by your email program. It is possible
to specify several addresses separated by commas or semicolons.
If you append a dot character to -ieml, an archive will be
deleted after it was successfully attached to an email.
If the switch is used when creating a multivolume archive,
every volume is attached to a separate email message.
-ierr Send all messages to stderr.
-ilog[name]
Log errors to file.
Write error messages to rar.log file. If optional 'name'
parameter is not specified, the log file is created
using the following defaults:
Unix: .rarlog file in the user's home directory;
Windows: rar.log file in %APPDATA%\WinRAR directory.
If 'name' parameter includes a file name without path,
RAR will create the log file in the default directory
mentioned above using the specified name. Include both path
and name to 'name' parameter if you wish to change
the location of log file.
By default, log file uses UTF-16 little endian encoding,
but it can be changed with -sc<charset>g switch, such as -scag
for native single byte encoding.
Example:
rar a -ilogc:\log\backup.log backup d:\docs
will create c:\log\backup.log log file in case of errors.
-inul Disable all messages.
-ioff[n]
Turn PC off after completing an operation.
Use -ioff or -ioff1 to turn PC off, -ioff2 to hibernate,
-ioff3 to sleep and -ioff4 to restart. Appropriate power features
must be supported by operating system.
If several RAR copies are started with this switch,
PC is turned off by a copy finished last.
Windows version only.
-isnd[-]
Control notification sounds.
Use -isnd to enable notification sounds and -isnd- to disable them.
-iver Display the version number and quit. You can run just "RAR -iver".
-k Lock archive.
Prevents accidental archive modification by RAR.
See the 'k' command description for details.
Example:
rar a -k final.rar srcfiles
-kb Keep broken extracted files.
RAR, by default, deletes files with checksum errors
after extraction. The switch -kb specifies that files
with checksum errors should not be deleted.
-log[fmt][=name]
Write names to log file.
This switch allows to write archive and file names to specified
text file in archiving, extracting, deleting and listing commands.
Its behavior is defined by 'fmt' string, which can include one
or more of following characters:
A - write archive names to log file. If RAR creates or processes
volumes, all volume names are logged.
F - write processed file names to log file. It includes
files added to archive and extracted, deleted or listed
files inside of archive.
P - if log file with specified name exists, append data
to existing file instead of creating a new one.
U - write data in Unicode format.
If neither 'A' nor 'F' are specified, 'A' is assumed.
'name' parameter allows to specify the name of log file.
It must be separated from 'fmt' string by '=' character.
If 'name' is not present, RAR will use the default rarinfo.log
file name.
It is allowed to specify several -log switches in the same
command line.
This switch can be particularly useful, when you need to process
an archive created with -ag or -v switches in a batch script.
You can specify -loga=arcname.txt when creating an archive
and then read an archive name generated by RAR from arcname.txt
with an appropriate command. For example, in Windows batch file
it can be: set /p name=<arcname.txt.
Examples:
1) write names of created volumes to vollist.txt:
rar a -v100m -loga=vollist.txt volume.rar c:\data
2) write the generated archive name to backup.txt in Unicode:
rar a -ag -logau=backup.txt backup.rar myfiles\*
3) write names of tested volumes to vollist.txt and names
of tested archived files inside of volumes to filelist.txt:
rar t -log=vollist.txt -logf=filelist.txt volume.part01.rar
-m<n> Set compression method:
-m0 store do not compress file when adding to archive
-m1 fastest use fastest method (less compressive)
-m2 fast use fast compression method
-m3 normal use normal (default) compression method
-m4 good use good compression method (more
compressive, but slower)
-m5 best use best compression method (slightly more
compressive, but slowest)
If this switch is not specified, RAR uses -m3 method
(normal compression).
-ma[4|5]
Specify a version of archiving format.
By default RAR creates archives in RAR 5.0 format.
Use -ma4 to create RAR 4.x archives.
Use -ma5 or just -ma in case you need to override -ma4 saved
in configuration and force RAR to use RAR 5.0 format.
This switch is used only when creating a new archive.
It is ignored when updating an existing archive.
-mc<par>
Set advanced compression parameters.
This switch is intended mainly for benchmarking and
experiments. In the real environment it is usually better
to allow RAR to select optimal parameters automatically.
Please note that improper use of this switch may lead
to very serious performance and compression loss, so use
it only if you clearly understand what you do.
It has the following syntax:
-mc[param1][:param2][module][+ or -]
where <module> is the one character field denoting a part
of the compression algorithm, which has to be configured.
It may have the following values:
A - audio compression;
C - true color (RGB) data compression;
D - delta compression;
E - x86 executable compression;
T - text compression.
RAR 5.0 archive format supports only 'D' and 'E' values.
'+' sign at the end of switch applies the selected algorithm
module to all processed data, '-' disables the module at all.
If no sign is specified, RAR will choose modules automatically,
based on data and the current compression method.
Switch -mc- disables all optional modules and allows only
the general compression algorithm.
<Param1> and <Param2> are module dependent parameters
described below.
Audio compression, delta compression:
<Param1> is a number of byte channels (can be 1 - 31).
RAR splits multibyte channels to bytes, for example,
two 16-bit audio channels are considered by RAR as four
channels one byte each.
<Param2> is ignored.
x86 Intel executable compression, true color (RGB) data
compression:
<Param1> and <Param2> are ignored.
Text compression:
Text compression algorithm provides noticeably higher compression
on plain text data. But it cannot utilize several CPU cores
efficiently resulting in slower compression time comparing to
general algorithm in multicore and multiprocessor environment.
Also its decompression speed is much slower than in general
algorithm regardless of CPU cores number. This is why
the text compression is disabled by default. You can specify
-mct switch to allow RAR to select this algorithm automatically
for suitable data. Switch -mct+ will force use of the text
compression for all data.
Switch -mct can also include <Param1> and <Param2>, so its
full syntax is -mc[param1][:param2]t[+ or -].
<Param1> is the order of PPM algorithm (can be 2 - 63).
Usually a higher value slightly increases the compression ratio
of redundant data, but only if enough memory is available
to PPM. In case of lack of memory the result may be negative.
Higher order values decrease both compression and decompression
speed.
<Param2> is memory in megabytes allocated for PPM (1-128).
Higher values may increase the compression ratio, but note
that PPM uses the equal memory size both to compress and
decompress, so if you allocate too much memory when creating
an archive, other people may have problems when decompressing
it on a computer with less memory installed. Decompression
will be still possible using virtual memory, but it may
become very slow.
Examples:
1) switch -mc1a+ forces use of 8-bit mono audio compression
for all data.
2) switch -mc10:40t+ forces use of text compression
algorithm for all data, sets the compression order to 10
and allocates 40 MB memory.
3) switch -mc12t sets the text compression order to 12,
when the text compression is used, but leaves to RAR to
decide when to use it.
4) switches -mct -mcd- allow RAR to apply the text compression
to suitable data and disable the delta compression.
-md<n>[k,m,g]
Select the dictionary size.
Sliding dictionary is the memory area used by compression
algorithm to find and compress repeated data patterns.
If size of file being compressed (or total files size in case
of solid archive) is larger than dictionary size, increasing
the dictionary is likely to increase the compression ratio,
reduce the archiving speed and increase memory requirements.
For RAR 4.x archive format the dictionary size can be:
64 KB, 128 KB, 256 KB, 512 KB, 1 MB, 2 MB, 4 MB.
For RAR 5.0 archive format the dictionary size can be:
128 KB, 256 KB, 512 KB, 1 MB, 2 MB, 4 MB, 8 MB, 16 MB,
32 MB, 64 MB, 128 MB, 256 MB, 512 MB, 1 GB.
You can use 'k', 'm' and 'g' modifiers to specify the size
in kilo-, mega- and gigabytes, like -md64m for 64 MB dictionary.
If no modifier is specified, megabytes are assumed,
so -md64m and -md64 are equal.
When archiving, RAR needs about 6x memory of specified
dictionary size, so 512 MB and 1 GB sizes are available
in 64 bit RAR version only. When extracting, slightly more
than a single dictionary size is allocated, so both 32
and 64 bit versions can unpack archives with all dictionaries
up to and including 1 GB.
If size of all source files for solid archive or size of largest
source file for non-solid archive is at least twice less than
dictionary size, RAR can reduce the dictionary size. It helps
to lower memory usage without decreasing compression.
Default sliding dictionary size is 4 MB for RAR 4.x
and 32 MB for RAR 5.0 archive format.
Example:
RAR a -s -ma -md128 lib *.dll
create a solid archive in RAR 5.0 format with 128 MB dictionary.
-me[par]
Set encryption parameters.
Now only "s" parameter is supported. You can use -mes switch
to skip encrypted files when extracting or testing.
-ms[list]
Specify file types to store.
Specify file types, which will be stored without compression.
This switch may be used to store already compressed files,
which helps to increase archiving speed without noticeable
loss in the compression ratio.
Optional <list> parameter defines the list of file extensions
separated by semicolons. For example, -msrar;zip;jpg will
force RAR to store without compression all RAR and ZIP
archives and JPG images. It is also allowed to specify wildcard
file masks in the list, so -ms*.rar;*.zip;*.jpg will work too.
Several -ms switches are permitted, such as -msrar -mszip
instead of -msrar;zip.
In Unix -ms switch containing several file types needs to be
enclosed in quote marks. It protects semicolons from processing
by Unix shell. Another solution is to use individual -ms<type>
switches for every file type.
If <list> is not specified, -ms switch will use the default
set of extensions, which includes the following file types:
7z, ace, arj, bz2, cab, gz, jpeg, jpg, lha, lz, lzh, mp3,
rar, taz, tbz2, tgz, txz, zst, xz, z, zip, zipx, tzst
-mt<threads>
Set the number of threads.
<threads> parameter can take values from 1 to 64.
It defines the recommended maximum number of active threads
for compression algorithm also as for other RAR modules,
which can start several threads. While RAR attempts to follow
this recommendation, sometimes the real number of active
threads can exceed the specified value.
Change of <threads> parameter slightly affects the compression
ratio, so archives created with different -mt switches
will not be exactly the same even if all other compression
settings are equal.
If -mt switch is not specified, RAR will try to detect
the number of available processors and select the optimal
number of threads automatically.
-n<f> Additionally filter included files.
Apply the mask as an additional filter to included file list.
Wildcards can be used both in the name and file parts of
file mask. See switch -x description for details on mask syntax.
You can specify the switch '-n' several times.
This switch does not replace usual file masks, which still
need to be entered in the command line. It is an additional
filter limiting processed files only to those matching
the include mask specified in -n switch. It can help to
reduce the command line length sometimes.
For example, if you need to compress all *.txt and *.lst
files in directories Project and Info, you can enter:
rar a -r text Project\*.txt Project\*.lst Info\*.txt Info\*.lst
or using the switch -n:
rar a -r -n*.txt -n*.lst text Project Info
-n@<lf> Read additional filter masks from list file.
Similar to -n<f> switch, but reads filter masks from
the list file. If you use -n@ without the list file name
parameter, it will read filter masks from stdin.
This switch does not replace usual list files or file masks,
which still need to be entered in the command line.
It is an additional filter limiting processed files only to
those matching the include mask specified in -n switch.
Example:
rar a -r -n@inclist.txt text Project Info @listfile.txt
-oc Set NTFS Compressed attribute. Windows version only.
This switch allows to restore NTFS Compressed attribute
when extracting files. RAR saves Compressed file attribute
when creating an archive, but does not restore it unless
-oc switch is specified.
-oh Save hard links as the link instead of the file.
If archiving files include several hard links, store the first
archived hard link as usual file and the rest of hard links
in the same set as links to this first file. When extracting
such files, RAR will create hard links instead of usual files.
You must not delete or rename the first hard link in archive
after the archive was created, because it will make extraction
of following links impossible. If you modify the first link,
all following links will also have the modified contents
after extracting. Extraction command must involve the first
hard link to create following hard links successfully.
This switch is supported only by RAR 5.0 format.
-oi[0-4][:<minsize>]
Save identical files as references.
Switch -oi0 (or just -oi-) turns off identical file processing,
so such files are compressed as usual files. It can be used to
override another -oi value stored in RAR configuration.
If -oi1 (or just -oi) is specified, RAR analyzes the file
contents before starting archiving. If several identical files
are found, the first file in the set is saved as usual file
and all following files are saved as references to this first
file. It allows to reduce the archive size, but applies some
restrictions to resulting archive. You must not delete or rename
the first identical file in archive after the archive was
created, because it will make extraction of following files
using it as a reference impossible. If you modify the first file,
following files will also have the modified contents
after extracting.
While typically it is possible to unpack a reference without
unpacking the first file, in some cases it might be necessary
to involve the first file into extraction to create following
files successfully. Such cases include a multivolume archive
stored on several removable media and archives containing
a very large number of references.
It is recommended to use -oi only if you compress a lot of
identical files and will not modify an archive later.
If all identical files are small enough to fit into
compression dictionary specified with -md<n> switch,
switch -s can provide more flexible solution than -oi.
Switch -oi2 is similar to -oi1, with the only difference:
it will display names of found identical files before starting
archiving.
Switches -oi3 and -oi4 allow to utilize RAR to generate
lists of identical files. Though you still need to provide
a dummy archive name to make the command syntax valid,
in this mode an archive is not created and nothing is compressed.
If -oi3 is used, file sizes and names are displayed
and every identical file group is separated with empty line.
Switch -oi4 displays bare file names and skips the first
identical file in every file group, so only duplicates
are listed.
Optional <minsize> value allows to define the minimum file size
threshold. Files smaller than <minsize> are not analyzed
and not considered as identical. If this parameter is not
present, it is assumed to be 64 KB by default. Selecting
too small <minsize> may increase the time required to detect
identical files.
Switches -oi1 and -oi2 are supported only by RAR 5.0 format.
Examples:
1) rar a -oi -ma archive
Save contents of current directory to archive.rar.
Store identical files as references.
2) rar a -oi3:1000000 -r dummy c:\photo\*.jpg
List all duplicate *.jpg files, larger than or equal to
1000000 bytes, found in c:\photo and its subdirectories.
-ol[a] Process symbolic links as the link [absolute paths]
Save symbolic links as links, so file or directory contents
is not archived. In Windows version it also saves reparse points
as links. Such archive entries are restored as symbolic links
or reparse points when extracting.
Supported both for RAR 4.x and RAR 5.0 archives in RAR for Unix
and only for RAR 5.0 archives in RAR for Windows.
In Windows you may need to run RAR as administrator to create
symbolic links when extracting.
RAR adds all links regardless of target when archiving with
-ol switch. When extracting, to prevent placing files outside
of destination directory RAR can skip symbolic links with
absolute paths, the excessive number of ".." in link target
or other potentially dangerous link parameters. Also it can
convert some of links to directories. You can turn off these
security checks and extract all links as is with -ola switch.
Placing files outside of destination directory can present
a security risk when extracting. Use -ola switch only if you
are sure that archive contents is safe, such as your own backup.
Links that are considered safe by RAR are extracted always
regardless of -ol or -ola switch.
-oni Allow potentially incompatible names.
While NTFS file system permits file names with trailing spaces
and dots, also as reserved device names, a lot of Windows
programs fail to process such names correctly. If this switch
is not specified, RAR removes trailing spaces and dots, if any,
from file names when extracting. It also inserts the underscore
character in the beginning of reserved device names, such as aux.
Specify this switch if you need to extract such names as is.
It might be associated with compatibility or even security risks.
Windows version only.
-op<path>
Set the output path.
Specify the directory to place extracted files in 'x' and 'e'
commands. This directory is created by RAR if it does not
exist yet.
Unlike <path_to_extract\> command line parameter, -op switch
also accepts paths without trailing path separator character.
Example:
rar x -opdest archive
unpacks contents of archive.rar to 'dest' directory.
-or Rename extracted files automatically if file with the same name
already exists. Renamed file will get the name like
'filename(N).txt', where 'filename.txt' is the original file
name and 'N' is a number starting from 1 and incrementing
if file exists.
-os Save NTFS streams. Windows version only.
This switch has meaning only for NTFS file system and allows
to save alternate data streams associated with a file.
You may need to specify it when archiving if you use software
storing data in alternative streams and wish to preserve
these streams.
Streams are not saved for NTFS encrypted files.
-ow Use this switch when archiving to save file security
information and when extracting to restore it.
Unix RAR version saves file owner and group when using
this switch.
Windows version stores owner, group, file permissions and
audit information, but only if you have necessary privileges
to read them. Note that only NTFS file system supports
file based security under Windows.
-o[+|-] Set the overwrite mode. Can be used both when extracting
and updating archived files. Following modes are available:
-o Ask before overwrite
(default for extracting files);
-o+ Overwrite all
(default for updating archived files);
-o- Skip existing files.
-p[pwd] Set password
Set password <pwd> to encrypt files when archiving
or to decrypt when extracting.
Passwords are case-sensitive. Maximum password length is
127 characters. Longer passwords are truncated to this length.
If you omit a password in command line, you will be prompted
with "Enter password" message. You can also use file redirection
or pipe to specify a password if <pwd> parameter is missing.
Examples:
1) rar a -psecret texts.rar *.txt
add files *.txt and encrypt them with password "secret".
2) rar -p texts.rar *.txt < psw.txt
set contents of psw.txt file as a password.
-qo[-|+]
Add quick open information [none|force]
RAR archives store every file header containing information
such as file name, time, size and attributes immediately
before data of described file. This approach is more damage
resistant than storing all file headers in a single continuous
block, which if broken or truncated would destroy the entire
archive contents. But while being more reliable, such file
headers scattered around the entire archive are slower to
access if we need to quickly open the archive contents
in a shell like WinRAR graphical interface.
To improve archive open speed and still not make the entire
archive dependent on a single damaged block, RAR 5.0 archives
can include an optional quick open record. Such record is
added to the end of archive and contains copies of file names
and other file information stored in a single continuous block
additionally to normal file headers inside of archive.
Since the block is continuous, its contents can be read quickly,
without necessity to perform a lot of disk seek operations.
Every file header in this block is protected with a checksum.
If RAR detects that quick open information is damaged,
it resorts to reading individual headers from inside of archive,
so damage resistance is not lessened.
Quick open record contains the full copy of file header,
which may be several tens or hundreds of bytes per file,
increasing the archive size by the same amount. This size
increase is most noticeable for many small files, when file
data size is comparable to file header. So by default,
if no -qo is specified or -qo without parameter is used,
RAR stores copies of headers only for relatively large files
and continues to use local headers for smaller files.
Concrete file size threshold can depend on RAR version.
Such approach provides a reasonable open speed to archive size
tradeoff. If you prefer to have the maximum archive open speed
regardless of size, you can use -qo+ to store copies of all
file headers. If you need to have the smallest possible archive
and do not care about archive open speed in different programs,
specify -qo- to exclude the quick open information completely.
If you wish to measure the performance effect of this switch,
be sure that archive contents is not stored in a disk cache.
No real disk seeks are performed for cached archive file,
making access to file headers fast even without quick open
record.
-r Recurse subdirectories. May be used with commands:
a, u, f, m, x, e, t, p, v, l, c, cf and s.
When used with the commands 'a', 'u', 'f', 'm' will process
files in all sub-directories as well as the current working
directory.
When used with the commands x, e, t, p, v, l, c, cf or s will
process all archives in sub-directories as well as the current
working directory.
-r- Disable recursion.
Even without -r switch RAR can enable the recursion
automatically in some situations. Switch -r- prohibits it.
If you specify a directory name when archiving and if such
name does not include wildcards, by default RAR adds
the directory contents even if switch -r is not specified.
Also RAR automatically enables the recursion if disk root
without wildcards is specified as a file mask. Switch -r-
disables such behavior.
For example:
rar a -r- arc dirname
command will add only the empty 'dirname' directory and ignore
its contents. Following command:
rar a -r- arc c:\
will compress contents of root c: directory only and
will not recurse into subdirectories.
-r0 Similar to -r, but when used with the commands 'a', 'u', 'f',
'm' will recurse into subdirectories only for those file masks,
which include wildcard characters '*' and '?'.
This switch works only for file names. Directory names without
a file name part, such as 'dirname', are not affected by -r0
and their contents is added to archive completely unless -r-
switch is specified.
Example:
rar a -r0 docs.rar *.doc readme.txt
add *.doc files from the current directory and its subdirectories
and readme.txt only from the current directory to docs.rar
archive. In case of usual -r switch, RAR would search for
readme.txt in subdirectories too.
-ri<p>[:<s>]
Set priority and sleep time. Available only in RAR for Windows.
This switch regulates system load by RAR in multitasking
environment. Possible task priority <p> values are 0 - 15.
If <p> is 0, RAR uses the default task priority.
<p> equal to 1 sets the lowest possible priority,
15 - the highest possible.
Sleep time <s> is a value from 0 to 1000 (milliseconds).
This is a period of time that RAR gives back to the system
after read or write operations while compressing or extracting.
Non-zero <s> may be useful if you need to reduce system load
even more than can be achieved with <p> parameter.
Example:
execute RAR with default priority and 10 ms sleep time:
rar a -ri0:10 backup *.*
-rr[N] Add data recovery record. This switch is used when creating
or modifying an archive to add a data recovery record to
the archive. See the 'rr[N]' command description for details.
-rv[N] Create recovery volumes. This switch is used when creating
a multivolume archive to generate recovery volumes.
See the 'rv[N]' command description for details.
-s Create solid archive. A solid archive is an archive packed by
a special compression method, which treats several or all
files, within the archive, as one continuous data stream.
Solid archiving significantly increases compression, when
adding a large number of small, similar files. But it also
has a few important disadvantages: slower updating of existing
solid archives, slower access to individual files, lower
damage resistance.
Usually files in a solid archive are sorted by extension.
But it is possible to disable sorting with -ds switch or set
an alternative file order using a special file, rarfiles.lst.
Example:
create solid archive sources.rar with 512 KB dictionary,
recursing all directories, starting with the current directory.
Add only .asm files:
rar a -s -md512 sources.rar *.asm -r
-s<N> Create solid groups using file count
Similar to -s, but resets solid statistics after compressing
<N> files. Usually decreases compression, but also
decreases losses in case of solid archive damages.
-sc<charset>[objects]
Specify the character set.
'Charset' parameter is mandatory and can have one
of the following values:
U - Unicode UTF-16;
F - Unicode UTF-8;
A - the native single byte encoding, which is ANSI
for Windows version;
O - OEM (DOS) encoding. Windows version only.
Endianness of source UTF-16 files, such as list files
or comments, is detected based on the byte order mark.
If byte order mask is missing, little endian encoding is assumed.
'Objects' parameter is optional and can have one of
the following values:
G - log files produced by -ilog switch;
L - list files;
C - comment files;
R - messages sent to redirected files and pipes (Windows only).
It is allowed to specify more than one object, for example,
-scolc. If 'objects' parameter is missing, 'charset' is applied
to all objects.
This switch allows to specify the character set for files
in -z[file] switch, list files and comment files written by
"cw" command.
Examples:
1) rar a -scol data @list
Read names contained in 'list' using OEM encoding.
2) rar c -scuc -zcomment.txt data
Read comment.txt as Unicode file.
3) rar cw -scuc data comment.txt
Write comment.txt as Unicode file.
4) rar lb -scur data > list.txt
Save archived file names in data.rar to list.txt in Unicode.
-se Create solid groups using extension
Similar to -s, but resets solid statistics if file extension
is changed. Usually decreases compression, but also
decreases losses from solid archive damages.
-sfx[name]
Create SFX archives. If this switch is used when creating a new
archive, a Self-Extracting archive (using a module in file
default.sfx or specified in the switch) would be created.
In the Windows version default.sfx should be placed in the
same directory as the rar.exe, in Unix - in the user's
home directory, in /usr/lib or /usr/local/lib.
Example:
rar a -sfxwincon.sfx myinst
create SelF-eXtracting (SFX) archive using wincon.sfx
SFX-module.
-si[name]
Read data from stdin (standard input), when creating, extracting
or testing an archive.
When archiving, the optional 'name' parameter allows to specify
a file name of compressed stdin data in the created archive.
If this parameter is missing, the name will be set to 'stdin'.
When extracting, the archive name specified in the command line
is used only in informational messages, but actual archive data
is read from stdin. So any dummy archive name can be applied.
RAR cannot perform operations requiring backward seeks
when reading archive data from stdin. Incomplete list of
features unavailable in such mode includes displaying archive
comments, testing the recovery record, utilizing the quick open
information, processing multivolume archives.
Any prompts requiring user interaction are not allowed with
-si and lead to program termination. If overwriting existing
files or unpacking encrypted files is possible, avoid such
prompts with -o[+|-|r], -p<pwd> or -mes switches.
Examples:
1) compress 'type readme.txt' output as 'readme.rar' file
type readme.txt | rar a -sireadme.txt readme.rar
2) unpack docs.rar to 'docs' directory
type docs.rar | rar x -si -o+ -pmypwd dummy docs\
-sl<size>
Process only those files, which size is less than
specified in <size> parameter of this switch.
Parameter <size> must be specified in bytes.
-sm<size>
Process only those files, which size is more than
specified in <size> parameter of this switch.
Parameter <size> must be specified in bytes.
-sv Create independent solid volumes
By default RAR tries to reset solid statistics as soon
as possible when starting a new volume, but only
if enough data was packed after a previous reset
(at least a few megabytes).
This switch forces RAR to ignore packed data size and attempt
to reset statistics for volumes of any size. It decreases
compression, but increases chances to extract a part of data
if one of several solid volumes in a volume set was lost
or damaged.
Note that sometimes RAR cannot reset statistics even
using this switch. For example, it cannot be done when
compressing one large file split between several volumes.
RAR is able to reset solid statistics only between separate
files, but not inside of single file.
Ignored if used when creating a non-volume archive.
-sv- Create dependent solid volumes
Disables to reset solid statistics between volumes.
It slightly increases compression, but significantly reduces
chances to extract a part of data if one of several solid
volumes in a volume set was lost or damaged.
Ignored if used when creating a non-volume archive.
-s- Disable solid archiving
-t Test files after archiving. This switch is especially
useful in combination with the move command, so files will be
deleted only if the archive had been successfully tested.
-ta[m,c,a,o]<date>
Process only files modified after the specified date.
Files matching the specified date exactly are also included.
Format of the date string is YYYYMMDDHHMMSS.
It is allowed to insert separators like '-' or ':' to
the date string and omit trailing fields. For example,
the following switch is correct: -ta2001-11-20
Internally it will be expanded to -ta20011120000000
and treated as "files modified after 0 hour 0 minutes
0 seconds of 20 November 2001".
Use 'm', 'c', 'a' modifiers to specify modification,
creation (ctime in Unix) and last access time accordingly,
such as -tac20011120 for creation time or ctime.
If such modifier is omitted, the modification time is assumed.
It is allowed to use several modifiers in the same switch,
such as -tamc20190215, to set the same date for all specified
times. Alternatively you can add several time filtering
switches to command line. By default, time filters use AND logic,
so a file must match all such filters to be processed.
It can be changed to OR logic with 'o' modifier, so a file will
have to match at least one 'o' filter. For example, use
-taco20190201 -tamo20190210 to include files created after
2019-02-01 or modified after 2019-02-10.
-tb[m,c,a,o]<date>
Process only files modified before the specified date.
Files matching the specified date exactly are not included.
Format of the switch is the same as -ta<date>.
-tk Keep original archive date. Prevents RAR from modifying the
archive date when changing an archive.
-tl Set archive time to newest file. Forces RAR to set the date of a
changed archive to the date of the newest file in the archive.
-tn[m,c,a,o]<time>
Process files newer than the specified time period.
Files matching the specified time period exactly are also included.
Format of the time string is:
[<ndays>d][<nhours>h][<nminutes>m][<nseconds>s]
For example, use switch -tn15d to process files newer
than 15 days and -tn2h30m to process files newer than
2 hours 30 minutes.
Use 'm', 'c', 'a' modifiers to specify modification,
creation (ctime in Unix) and last access time accordingly,
such as -tnc2h30m for creation time or ctime.
If such modifier is omitted, the modification time is assumed.
It is allowed to use several modifiers in the same switch,
such as -tnmc30d, to set the same period for all specified times.
Alternatively you can add several time filtering switches to
command line. By default, time filters use AND logic,
so a file must match all such filters to be processed.
It can be changed to OR logic with 'o' modifier, so a file
will have to match at least one 'o' filter. For example,
use -tnco30d -tnmo20d to include files with creation time
newer than 30 days or modification time newer than 20 days.
-to[m,c,a,o]<time>
Process files older than the specified time period.
Files matching the specified time period exactly are not included.
Format of the switch is the same as -tn<time>.
-ts[m,c,a,p][+,-,1]
Save or restore file time (modification, creation or ctime,
access, preserve).
Use -tsm to save the file modification time. Switch -tsc saves
the creation time in Windows and the change time, also known
as ctime, in Unix. Switch -tsa saves the last access time.
Multiple -ts switches, such as -tsc -tsa, are allowed.
If 'm', 'c' or 'a' are not specified, all three file times
are assumed.
Append '+' to store a file time with maximum possible precision.
Concrete value depends on a operating system and file system
and can be up 100 nanoseconds in Windows and 1 nanosecond
in Unix. Append '1' to set 1 second precision or '-' to not save
a file time. If '+', '-' or '1' are not present, '+' is assumed,
so -ts+ and -ts both save all three high precision times.
All stored times for same file always have the same precision.
If different precisions are specified, such as -tsm1 -tsc+,
common one is selected.
RAR 4.x archives always contain the modification time
and for RAR 4.x archive -tsm- still saves the modification time
with the lowest possible 2 second precision. Two other times
can be disabled. RAR 5.0 archives allow to omit any file time
including modification, so unpacked files will have the current
system time. Switches -tsm- -tsc- -tsa- or just -ts- will store
a low precision modification time for RAR 4.x and no file time
for RAR 5.0 archive.
If -ts switch is not specified, RAR stores the high precision
modification time and omits two other times.
By default RAR sets only the modification time for extracted files,
even if archive contains other times. Use -ts or -ts+ when
unpacking to set all three times, -tsc and -tsa to set
creation (ctime in Unix) and last access times, -tsm- or -ts-
to set the current system time instead of modification time
stored in archive.
Windows allows to set all three file times when unpacking.
In Unix we can set the modification and last access, but not
the change time.
Use -tsp switch to preserve the original last access file time
of source files when archiving. This switch attempts to keep
the original last access time of archiving files, but it does not
control which timestamps are to be stored in archive.
It has to be combined with other -ts switches for this purpose.
For example, if we wish to save the last access time to archive
and preserve the last access time of source files, we need
to use -tsa -tsp together. Switch -tsp can prevent opening
some files, which can be opened without it.
While -tsp is supported by RAR for Windows, it is not guaranteed
to work for other platforms.
It is allowed to combine several modifiers in the same switch,
such as -tscap instead of -tsc -tsa -tsp.
Examples:
1) rar a -ts backup
Store all file times with the highest possible precision.
2) rar x -tsa backup
Restore modification and last access time. Switch -tsm is not
required, because RAR sets the modification time by default.
If we wish to restore only the last access time, we should use
-tsm- -tsa switches.
3) rar a -tsm1 -tsc1 -tsp backup
Store low precision modification and creation or ctime times.
Preserve the last access time of source files.
Alternatively we could use -tsm1c1p instead of -tsm1 -tsc1 -tsp.
-u Update files. May be used with archive extraction or creation.
The command string "a -u" is equivalent to the command 'u', you
could also use the switch '-u' with the commands 'm' or 'mf'. If
the switch '-u' is used with the commands 'x' or 'e', then files
not present on the disk and files newer than their copies on the
disk would extracted from the archive.
-v Create volumes with size autodetection or list all volumes
This switch may be used when creating or listing volumes.
In the first case it enables volume size autodetection,
so new volumes will use all available space on the destination
media. It is convenient when creating volumes on removable
disks. You may read more about volumes in -v<size> description.
In the second case, when this switch is used together with
'V' or 'L' command, it forces RAR to list contents of all
volumes starting from that specified in the command line.
Without this switch RAR displays contents of only one single
specified volume.
-v<size>[k|b|m|M|g|G]
Create volumes with size=<size>*1000 [*1024 | *1].
By default this switch uses <size> as thousands (1000) of bytes
(not 1024 x bytes). You may also enter the size in kilobytes
using the symbol 'k', in bytes using the symbol 'b',
megabytes - 'm', millions of bytes - 'M', gigabytes - 'g',
billions (milliards) of bytes - 'G'.
If the size is omitted, autodetection will be used.
It is allowed to enter decimal fractions using the dot as
the decimal mark. For example, -v1.5g means 1.5 gigabytes.
You may specify several -v switches to set different sizes
for different volumes. For example:
rar a -v100k -v200k -v300k arcname
sets 100 KB size for first volume, 200 KB for second
and 300 KB for all following volumes.
If volumes are created on removable media, then after
the creation of the first volume, the user will be prompted
with:
Create next volume: Yes/No/All
At this moment in time, you should change the disks. Answering
'A' will cause all volumes to be created without a pause.
By default RAR volumes have names like 'volname.partNNN.rar',
where NNN is the volume number. For RAR 4.x archive format
using -vn switch it is possible to select another,
extension based naming scheme, where the first volume file
in a multi-volume set has the extension .rar, following
volumes are numbered from .r00 to .r99. RAR 5.0 archives
do not support -vn and extension based names.
When extracting or testing a multi-volume archive you must use
only the first volume name. If there is no next volume
on the drive and the disk is removable, the user will be
prompted with:
Insert disk with <next volume name>
Insert the disk with the correct volume and press any key.
If while extracting, the next volume is not found and volumes
are placed on the non-removable disk, RAR will abort with
the error message:
Cannot find <volume name>
Archive volumes cannot be modified. The commands 'd', 'f', 'u',
's' cannot be used with Multi-volume sets. The command 'a' may
be used only for the creation of a new multi-volume sequence.
It is possible, although unlikely, that the file size, of a file
in a multi-volume set, could be greater than its uncompressed
size. This is due to the fact that 'storing' (no compression if
size increases) cannot be enabled for multi-volume sets.
Archive volumes may be Self-Extracting (SFX). Such an archive
should be created using both the '-v' and '-sfx' switches.
Example:
create solid volumes 1 GB each:
rar a -s -v1g volume.rar bitmaps
-vd Erase disk contents before creating volume
All files and directories on the target disk will be erased
when '-vd' is used. The switch applies only to removable
media, the hard disk cannot be erased using this switch.
-ver[n] File version control
Forces RAR to keep previous file versions when updating
files in the already existing archive. Old versions are
renamed to 'filename;n', where 'n' is the version number.
By default, when unpacking an archive without the switch
-ver, RAR extracts only the last added file version, the name
of which does not include a numeric suffix. But if you specify
a file name exactly, including a version, it will be also
unpacked. For example, 'rar x arcname' will unpack only
last versions, when 'rar x arcname file.txt;5' will unpack
'file.txt;5', if it is present in the archive.
If you specify -ver switch without a parameter when unpacking,
RAR will extract all versions of all files that match
the entered file mask. In this case a version number is
not removed from unpacked file names. You may also extract
a concrete file version specifying its number as -ver parameter.
It will tell RAR to unpack only this version and remove
a version number from file names. For example,
'rar x -ver5 arcname' will unpack only 5th file versions.
If you specify 'n' parameter when archiving, it will limit
the maximum number of file versions stored in the archive.
Old file versions exceeding this threshold will be removed.
When archiving with -ver switch, it is recommended to avoid
names in 'filename;n' format among files to add. Such names
can lead to duplicate entries if old version with same name
either is present in archive or will be created later.
-vn Use the old style volume naming scheme
By default RAR volumes have names like 'volname.partNNN.rar',
where NNN is the volume number. For RAR 4.x archive format
using -vn switch it is possible to select another,
extension based naming scheme, where the first volume file
in a multi-volume set has the extension .rar, following
volumes are numbered from .r00 to .r99. RAR 5.0 archives
do not support -vn and extension based names.
-vp Pause before each volume
By default RAR asks for confirmation before processing
next volume only when archiving to removable disks and only
if free disk space is less than volume size. This switch
forces RAR to always ask for such confirmation when creating
or extracting volumes. For example, it can be useful if you
wish to copy new volumes to another media immediately after
creating.
-w<p> Assign work directory to <p>.
RAR creates temporary files in some operations like archive
modification. This switch can be used to specify the directory
for such temporary files. This directory must be already exist.
Example:
use d:\tmp directory for temporary files when adding a new
comment to info.rar
RAR c -wd:\tmp -zcomment.txt info.rar
-x<f> Exclude the specified <f> file or directory. Wildcards can be
used in both the name and path parts of file mask. You can
specify the switch '-x' several times to define several
exclusion masks in the same command line.
If mask contains wildcards, it applies to files in current
directory and its subdirectories. It is not recursive without
wildcards, so "filename" mask will exclude 'filename' file
only in current directory when archiving or in root archive
directory when extracting.
Use "*\filename" syntax to exclude "filename" recursively
in all directories.
If you know the exact path to file, you can use "path\filename"
syntax to exclude only this copy of "filename". If you use
-xpath\filename syntax when unpacking an archive, "path" must be
the path inside of archive, not the file path on the disk after
unpacking.
By default, masks containing wildcards are applied only to files.
If you need a mask with wildcards to exclude several directories,
use the special syntax for directory exclusion masks.
Such masks must have the trailing path separator character
('\' for Windows and '/' for Unix). For example, "*tmp*\" mask
will exclude all directories matching "*tmp*" and "*\tmp\" will
exclude all 'tmp' directories. Since wildcards are present,
both masks will be applied to contents of current directory
and all its subdirectories.
If you wish to exclude only one directory, specify the exact
name of directory including the absolute or relative path
without any wildcards. In this case you do not need to append
the path separator to mask, which is required only for directory
exclusion masks containing wildcards to distinguish them
from file exclusion masks.
Examples:
1) rar a -r -x*.jpg -x*.avi rawfiles
compress all files except *.jpg and *.avi in current directory
and its subdirectories;
2) rar a -r -x*\temp\ savec c:\*
compress all files on the disk c: except 'temp' directories
and files inside of 'temp' directories;
3) rar x -x*.txt docs
extract all files except *.txt from docs.rar.
-x@<lf> Exclude files listed in the specified list file. If you use -x@
without the list file name parameter, it will read file names
from stdin.
Example:
rar a -x@exlist.txt arch *.exe
-y Assume Yes on all queries.
-z[file]
Read archive comment from file <file>.
This switch can be used with any archive modification command
to read the archive comment from file and add it to archive.
Use with -sc switch if you need to specify the character set
for comment text file. If <file> is not present, comment
is read from stdin.
Limitations
~~~~~~~~~~~
Command limitations:
Commands 'd','u','f','c','cf' will not operate with archive volumes.
Command 'a' cannot be used to update an archive volume, only to
create a new one.
Exit values
~~~~~~~~~~~
RAR exits with a zero code (0) in case of successful operation.
Non-zero exit code indicates some kind of error:
Code Description
0 Successful operation.
1 Non fatal error(s) occurred.
2 A fatal error occurred.
3 Invalid checksum. Data is damaged.
4 Attempt to modify an archive locked by 'k' command.
5 Write error.
6 File open error.
7 Wrong command line option.
8 Not enough memory.
9 File create error
10 No files matching the specified mask and options were found.
11 Wrong password.
12 Read error.
255 User stopped the process.
Glossary
~~~~~~~~
Archive Special file containing one or more files optionally
compressed and/or encrypted.
Compression A method of encoding data to reduce it's size.
Checksum Value calculating for data block or file and allowing to
check data or file validity.
SFX archive SelF-eXtracting archive. Archive in executable format,
consisting of self-extracting module followed by
compressed data. It is enough to run such executable to
start extraction.
Solid An archive packed using a special compression method which
sees all files as one continuous data stream. Particularly
advantageous when packing a large number of small files.
Volume Part of a split archive. Splitting an archive to volumes
allows storing them on several removable disks.
Solid volumes must be extracted starting from first
volume in sequence.
Copyrights
(c) 1993-2023 Alexander Roshal
Generated by dwww version 1.15 on Thu Jun 27 23:36:28 CEST 2024.