FILE to RAR Online

How to Create a RAR Archive Online

1. Upload Your Files: Drag and drop or click "+ Add Files" to load any combination of documents, photos, videos, or folders from your device. Batch upload is supported — drop in 100+ files at once or queue them in a few groups.
2. Pick the Archive Mode: Choose Single Archive (default) to bundle every uploaded file into one .rar, or Individual Archives to wrap each file in its own .rar (useful when you want to keep items separately downloadable but in RAR form). The output extension is already set to RAR.
3. Review the File List (Optional): Remove any items you uploaded by mistake before processing. The internal folder structure is preserved — subfolders show up as nested paths inside the archive.
4. Create and Download: Click "Convert" and download the resulting .rar file (or a ZIP bundle of per-file archives if you picked Individual Archives). Files are uploaded over an encrypted connection, processed on our servers, and deleted automatically after one hour — no sign-up, no watermark, never shared.

Why Create a RAR Archive?

RAR is a proprietary compressed-archive format created by Eugene Roshal in March 1993; the current spec (RAR 5.0) ships in WinRAR 5.0+ and uses a much larger compression dictionary than older formats, which is why it consistently lands 10–30% smaller than ZIP on the same input. Picking RAR over ZIP, 7z, or TAR makes sense when:

• You're sending a large file set to a Windows recipient — Windows 11 added native RAR extraction in October 2023 (no third-party tool required), so a Windows user can double-click your .rar and see the contents without installing WinRAR or 7-Zip.
• Your recipient asked for RAR specifically — gaming mod sites (Nexus Mods, ModDB), software-cracking forums, and many torrent uploaders default to RAR; staying in that format avoids re-archiving on their end.
• You want better compression than ZIP — RAR5's default 32 MB dictionary (vs ZIP's typical 32 KB Deflate window) gives noticeably tighter packing on text, source code, log files, and any data with long-range repetition. ZIP is built around DEFLATE from 1989; RAR5 is a 2013 design.
• You're shipping a multi-volume set — RAR's volume-split feature (part1.rar, part2.rar, …) is the original use case for the format and is widely understood by RAR-aware tools. Useful when a cloud-storage cap or upload limit forces you to chunk a big payload.
• Compatibility with legacy RAR-only workflows — older Windows shops, automation scripts, and game/film archives often expect .rar. Producing RAR keeps you inside that pipeline without conversion losses (archive formats are lossless either way, but tool-chain glue can be brittle).

Need a different output instead? Build a ZIP archive for universal compatibility, a 7z archive for the best free-format compression, or convert an existing ZIP to RAR or RAR to 7z.

RAR vs ZIP vs 7z — Format Comparison

RAR4 vs RAR5 — Which Version Are You Getting?

RAR5 has been the WinRAR default since version 5.0 (April 2013) and is what virtually every modern RAR creator produces. RAR4 lives on only as a compatibility switch for older extractors.

Practical advice: only fall back to RAR4 if you know the recipient is on a pre-2014 extractor; everyone else benefits from RAR5's stronger checksum, encryption, and dictionary.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can free software create RAR archives, and how does this tool do it?

The compression side of RAR is proprietary — RarLab releases the UnRAR source code (so any tool can read .rar files) but does not release the packer source. Officially, only WinRAR, the RAR command-line tool, and a few licensed apps can write new RAR archives. Online RAR creators rely on a licensed RAR command-line binary running on the server; that's how the file you download here ends up as a valid .rar your recipient can open in WinRAR, Windows 11, or any other reader.

Can I password-protect the RAR with AES-256?

Password-protection requires the encryption options exposed by the server-side RAR binary. The xconvert web UI does not currently surface a password field on this page — if you need encrypted RAR output, generate the archive here and then re-pack it with a password in WinRAR (Windows), the command-line rar tool (macOS/Linux), or use Compress RAR to recompress an existing archive. RAR5 itself supports AES-256 and can encrypt file names so the contents aren't visible even to someone inspecting the archive without the password.

What's the difference between Single Archive and Individual Archives?

Single Archive (the default) packs every file you uploaded into one .rar. The internal folder structure is preserved, so subfolders are restored on extraction. Individual Archives creates one .rar per uploaded file — useful when you want each item to be downloadable on its own (e.g., posting separate RAR attachments) but kept in RAR format. You'll receive the individual RARs as a ZIP bundle so the browser downloads them in a single click.

Will my file structure (folders and subfolders) be preserved?

Yes. RAR stores the relative path of every entry, so if you upload project/src/app.js, the archive contains project/src/app.js and extracting on the other end recreates that hierarchy. ZIP, 7z, and TAR work the same way — every modern archive format records paths.

Does Windows 11 / macOS / Linux open the resulting RAR natively?

Windows 11 added native RAR extraction via libarchive in the October 2023 release — right-click → Extract All works without third-party software. Windows 10 and earlier need WinRAR, 7-Zip, NanaZip, or PeaZip. macOS Archive Utility (Finder's built-in unzipper) does not handle RAR; recipients can install The Unarchiver (free, Mac App Store) or Keka. Linux distributions usually ship unrar or unrar-free in the package manager (sudo apt install unrar), and graphical tools like File Roller, Ark, and Engrampa handle RAR once that package is present.

Can I split the RAR into multiple volumes (part1.rar, part2.rar)?

Multi-volume splitting is a desktop-WinRAR feature and is not exposed in the current xconvert web flow. If you need to split a large RAR into chunks (e.g., to fit each part under a 25 MB email cap), build the archive here, then in WinRAR pick "Add to archive" → "Split to volumes, size" with a value like 25M. The resulting .part01.rar, .part02.rar, … must all be present in the same folder for extraction to succeed.

Why does my RAR look smaller (or larger) than I expected?

Compression ratio depends almost entirely on what's inside the archive. Already-compressed files (JPG, PNG, MP4, MP3, AAC, MKV, other ZIPs/RARs, PDFs with image content) barely shrink — RAR may add a few hundred KB of metadata and recovery record. Uncompressed payloads (TXT, CSV, log files, raw BMP/TIFF images, WAV, source code, database dumps) often compress 60–90% in RAR5. If you're packing a folder of photos and the RAR is the same size as the source, that's expected — try a PNG compressor or JPG compressor on the contents first, then archive.

Are my files private?

files are processed on our servers and deleted automatically after one hour and deleted after the session ends. No account is required, there are no watermarks, and there's no per-day file-count limit. If you need an extra layer, archive locally first with a password in WinRAR or 7-Zip and upload the already-encrypted archive — the server never sees the contents in that case.

Should I use RAR or 7z if my recipient is technical?

For a Windows-only or Windows-first audience with WinRAR installed, RAR is fine. For a technical audience comfortable installing 7-Zip / Keka / PeaZip, 7z usually compresses 5–15% tighter than RAR5 on text-heavy data because LZMA2 is more aggressive than RAR's algorithm, and 7z is free of licensing constraints. RAR's standout advantage over 7z is the built-in recovery record — only pick RAR if you specifically need archive-repair capability or are matching a recipient's required format.