How to Extract RAR files in Ubuntu 14.04 / 13.10 / 13.04 / 12.10 / 12.04

Updated by | Apr 18, 2014 | Linux | 30 comments

RAR, a very popular and famous compression method. It is a non free archive file format that supports data compression, error recovery, and file spanning. You can use some of the Third-party software like unrar and 7-Zip to extract RAR files in Ubuntu 14.04 / 13.10 Ubuntu 13.04 / 12.10 / 12.04 / 11.10 which is free to use.

In Ubuntu unrar is not installed by default, you might face the below error while trying to extract rar files.

“Could not open this file type

There is no command installed for RAR archive files.”

rar-ubuntu-13.04

To install unrar

Run the following command in terminal and type the password for the user, when prompted.

sudo apt-get install unrar

unrar-ubuntu-13.04

Thats it. Now you can extract or open RAR files in your system.

Hope this will be helpful for you!!!

  • athenatechs

    Everyone keeps telling folks who want WinRar to apt-get unrar…it’s not the same. did it ever occure to any of you out there that perhaps those asking for WinRar want all the features that they are used to? The amazing compression abilities, adding recovery records, ability to archive an entire drive for backup purposes, adding their authentication info, etc. So here’s the real deal…1) WinRar works perfectly in WINE but if you want more support RarLabs has an extras page with both a command line version and additional support for WINE here http://www.rarlab.com/rar_add.htm

    • asdf

      mate fuck off no one likes u, winrar can eat a dick tar -cf and xz -9 > all your wingay shit

  • Thanks a lot, it works!

  • raja

    thanks

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  • Mike Harkin

    I am a complete newbie at anything more than my my inbox, google &
    amazon. Plus just learned to download music for listening. I have
    an rar file I can

    • Hiren kubavat

      by pressing ctrl+alt+t and type this command

  • Ivan

    It works for me Ubuntu 12.04LTS Thank you

  • moose

    this does not work on 14.04. i get the message “package is not unavailable, but is referred to another package. This may mean that the package is, has been obsoleted, or is only available from another source”
    cannot get rar support in software center either.

    • rosshristov

      Work fine for me on 14.04.
      Thank you.

    • gregorsh1

      Not for me either.

    • Jonjon Taka

      Try the open source package unrar-free, this will certainly work: sudo apt-get install unrar-free

      • RC

        Wonderful, this worked for me. Thanks!

    • Anusha E

      yes this does not work on 14.04 gettng “package not available “message”

    • Anike Thapa

      even mine in ubuntu 13.04

  • Alba

    Very helpful..thanks a lot buddy ^_^

  • Musrifin Sami’an

    Work fine on ubuntu 14.04. thank you

    • Dominic Phong

      I’m using Ubuntu 14.04 but it doesn’t work.It show”E: Could not get lock /var/lib/dpkg/lock – open (11: Resource temporarily unavailable)
      E: Unable to lock the administration directory (/var/lib/dpkg/), is another process using it?”
      Can you help?

      • hutzlibu

        That means, that another installation is in progress.
        Like an update.
        Try again after reboot

  • Jay

    thnaks it works for me…..

  • Venkatesh

    BUT HOW TO WORK IN SVN in rar and unrar files

    • sinsi

      unrar e package_name.rar

  • Leandro

    Perfect!!!

  • aw

    so much thanks

  • kiritoo

    how to extract and open ?

  • david

    will anyone be kind enough to pint me in the right direction…
    i have multi rar files i would like to extract in the ubuntu terminal??
    i have installed unrar and would like the command to actuly extract my files in the directory it must be,please help thanks

  • Amine Harkane

    thanks, this worked for me on ubuntu 14.04

  • Odrei Lozada Diego

    it won’t work is just say “command not found” gosh i hate ubuntu!

  • Neil

    No problem on Mate 16.10 thank you for this. Super easy, no issues. sudo apt-get install unrar

  • monkey

    shot@dragon:~$unrar e wtf.rar

  • ANONYMONKEY

    This is :
    1. sudo apt install unrar
    2. shot@dragon:~$unrar e whatthefuuuuck.rar
    Output:

    UNRAR 5.30 beta 2 freeware Copyright (c) 1993-2015 Alexander Roshal

    Extracting from whatthefuuuuck.rar

    Extracting main.js OK
    Extracting plugins.js OK
    Extracting jquery.min.js OK
    All OK