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

Usage

• Create a .rar archive from file(s):

  rar a archive.rar file1 file2
  

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

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

  rar a -m4 archive.rar file1
  

• Extract file(s) from archive:

  unrar x archive.rar
  

• Extract file(s) to specific directory:

  unrar x archive.rar /home/$USER/Documents
  

• Extract file(s) from archive to stdout:

  unrar -p archive.rar
  

• List all files in archive.rar:

  unrar l archive.rar
  

  Use v instead for verbose output.

• Remove file(s) from archive:

  rar d archive.rar file2
  

• Test compressed archive data (unrar also can be used):

  rar t archive.rar
  

All Options

You can find all rar and unrar options in man pages:

man rar
man unrar