How to convert RAR to ZIP on Mac

Efficient file sharing: Easily manage RAR and ZIP compressed files

In our daily work and life, we often need to share a variety of files, from photos to financial statements, and it is crucial to ensure that the files arrive at the destination intact and incompleteness. While individual files can be easily shared via email or cloud storage, sharing multiple files or folders at once often faces challenges: too many files are difficult to manage, easily lost or ignored; folder sharing may be empty; and sharing of applications (also essentially folders) often fails to run on other Macs.

The solution is: archive before sending the file. Archives can preserve files and their relationships intact, while only processing a single file, and the file size may be smaller after compression.

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Comparison of RAR and ZIP formats

RAR and ZIP are both popular archive formats, but they are not exactly the same and have slightly different uses:

• ZIP: Born in 1989, it is an open source format, and is natively supported by all major operating systems. ZIP supports lightweight compression and password-based encryption.

• RAR: Born in 1993, although it can be used in all operating systems, it is not open source due to reverse engineering restrictions. Third-party software is required to open or create RAR files, but the compression is more efficient.

Traditionally, RAR is mainly used in Windows systems, and ZIP is more compatible. Therefore, how to convert RAR files to ZIP files, and what RAR to ZIP converters are suitable for Mac, is a common problem.

Convert RAR to ZIP on Mac

There are many websites online that claim to convert RAR to ZIP for free, but these sites are not always reliable. Even if the conversion is successful, the quality may be low and may even bring the risk of malware or files being copied to the website server.

It is safer and more reliable to process archive files directly on your Mac. The "archiving utility" that comes with Mac systems can process ZIP files (right-click the file, select "Compress" or double-click to unzip), but cannot process RAR files. Therefore, professional archiving software is needed.

BetterZip: Powerful compression tool

BetterZip is one of the most powerful compression tools on your Mac, supporting over 30 archive formats, allowing you to quickly create new archive files and decompress various compression files, including RAR.

The main feature of BetterZip is that it can preview folders and files in archive files without decompression, just like in Finder. You can extract or add files from archive files, rename files, set strong passwords, and use AppleScript to automate repetitive workflows.

Steps to manage RAR files using BetterZip:

1. Start BetterZip.
2. Drag and drop the RAR archive into the application.
3. Drag and drop files individually, preview files using the Quick View feature, or click the "Unzip" button on the top toolbar to extract all files.

BetterZip cannot create RAR archive files, so you need to use special archive tools such as Archiver.

Archiver: a lightweight and powerful archiving tool

Archiver is a lightweight Mac application that is intuitive and easy to use and powerful. It can archive and decompress dozens of formats, including RAR, and convert one archive format to another without decompressing the file first. Additionally, you can preview files in any archive file, selectively extract files, split an archive into multiple smaller files to reduce file size, or merge multiple archive files into one file. Finally, you can also set passwords and fine-tune compression levels.

Steps to convert RAR to ZIP using Archiver:

1. Start Archiver.
2. Drag and drop the RAR archive into the application.
3. Select Convert from the bottom menu.
4. Select ZIP.
5. Rename the new archive file, select the compression level, and set the password as needed.
6. Click "Convert".

Reduce RAR archive file size

The main advantage of RAR over ZIP is its higher compression rate (up to 11% higher), as ZIP is generally considered lossless compression.

If the RAR archive file is still too large, you need to use an application with compression. Archiver comes in handy again:

1. Open the RAR archive in Archiver.
2. Select Convert.
3. Choose ZIP, or better 7ZIP (more compression).
4. In the Compression Level drop-down menu, select Maximum.
5. Click "Convert".

If the conversion compression is still not enough, you can split the archive into several files of equal size. Archiver can do this easily:

1. Drag and drop the RAR archive into Archiver.
2. Select Split.
3. Set Block Size to a specific KB, MB, or GB (select in the drop-down menu).
4. Click "Split".
5. Drag and drop the generated split archive file anywhere on your Mac.

Summarize

On Mac, there is no easy way to convert RAR files to ZIP files by default, and you should avoid using unreliable websites that claim to be converted for free. It is best to use BetterZip for professional decompression and Archiver for archive, conversion and segmentation.

Both BetterZip and Archiver can be tried for seven days on the Setapp platform for free. Setapp offers over 210 top Mac applications covering a wide range of tasks, from secure internet access to budget management to calendar upgrades. Trial all Setapp apps now for free and experience its power!

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