WinRAR Professional

Overview

WinRAR is one of a very small number of applications that has been genuinely indispensable for thirty years without ever needing to reinvent itself. It reads every archive format you are likely to encounter, it writes the two that matter, and it does so with a compression ratio that still beats most alternatives on mixed content.

The RAR format itself carries features that ZIP simply does not have. Recovery records let a damaged archive repair itself, which matters for anything stored long term or transferred over an unreliable link. Solid archives compress a set of similar files as a continuous stream for a meaningfully better ratio. Multi volume splitting breaks a large archive into parts sized for whatever medium or upload limit you are working against. Dictionary sizes up to 1 GB improve ratio on very large sets.

On the reading side it handles ZIP, 7Z, TAR, GZ, BZ2, XZ, ISO, CAB, ARJ, LZH, UUE, Z and several more, which in practice means you install it once and never think about archive formats again. Damaged archive repair works on both RAR and ZIP, and the archive tester verifies integrity without extracting.

The shell integration is where daily use happens: context menu entries for extract here, extract to a named folder, add to archive, and add with options, all available without opening the main window. Command line tools cover scripted and scheduled archiving, and AES-256 encryption is available for both content and, in the RAR format, the file names themselves.

Key Features

• Creates RAR and ZIP archives, reads every common format including 7Z, TAR, ISO and CAB
• Recovery records that allow a damaged archive to repair itself
• Solid archiving for a better ratio on large sets of similar files
• Multi volume splitting with configurable part sizes
• Dictionary sizes up to 1 GB for large data sets
• AES-256 encryption for content and, in RAR, for file names
• Damaged archive repair for both RAR and ZIP
• Windows shell integration with extract and compress context menu entries
• Command line tools for scripted and scheduled archiving
• Benchmark and integrity test tools, no reminder screen in this build

What Changed in This Build

• Improved compression speed on multi core processors
• Better handling of very deep folder structures during extraction
• Extended support for recent variants of third party archive formats
• Reminder screen removed in this build

System Requirements

Processor	Any modern x86 or x64 processor
Memory	512 MB, more for large dictionary sizes
Storage	10 MB plus working space for archives
Operating system	Windows 7 or newer
Permissions	Administrator rights for shell integration

Release Details

Full title	WinRAR Professional
Version string	7.23
Publisher	win.rar GmbH
Category	Utilities
Licence	Full version, no nag screen
Platform	Windows 7 through 11, 32 and 64-bit
Interface language	Multilingual, 40 plus interface languages
Archive size	4.1 MB
Mirrors	4 active, all reporting online
Listed	refreshed 2 weeks ago, checked again 40 minutes ago

Installation Notes

• Enable shell integration during setup, it is the feature you will use most and it is easy to skip past.
• Use recovery records on anything you plan to keep or transfer, the size overhead is small next to the value of a repairable archive.
• Set the default format to RAR only if your recipients can open it, ZIP remains the safer choice for sending outward.

Before You Start

Read the notes above before running setup. Most of the problems people write in about are covered there, and almost all of them come down to an older version of the same software still being installed, a graphics driver that predates the release, or a security suite quarantining part of the package mid install.

There is no archive password on this or any other entry in the library. If something you downloaded elsewhere claims to come from here and asks for one, it did not come from here. Nothing on this site is behind a survey, a shortener or a countdown either.

If the entry does not match what the page describes, say so on the contact page and include the version string from the release details table. Reports naming a specific version get checked first because the checker can reproduce them straight away.

Frequently Asked