| User's Manual | |
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | |
| RAR 7.22 console version | |
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | |
| =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- | |
| Welcome to the RAR Archiver! | |
| -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= | |
| Introduction | |
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~ | |
| RAR is a console application allowing to manage archive files | |
| in command line mode. RAR provides compression, encryption, | |
| data recovery and many other functions described in this manual. | |
| RAR supports only RAR format archives, which have .rar file name | |
| extension by default. ZIP and other formats are not supported. | |
| Even if you specify .zip extension when creating an archive, it will | |
| still be in RAR format. Windows users may install WinRAR, which supports | |
| more archive types including RAR and ZIP formats. | |
| WinRAR provides both graphical user interface and command line mode. | |
| While console RAR and GUI WinRAR have the similar command line syntax, | |
| some differences exist. So it is recommended to use this rar.txt manual | |
| for console RAR (rar.exe in case of Windows version) and winrar.chm | |
| WinRAR help file for GUI WinRAR (winrar.exe). | |
| Configuration file | |
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | |
| RAR and UnRAR for Unix systems read configuration information from | |
| .rarrc file in a user's home directory (stored in HOME environment | |
| variable), in /etc directory, in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/rar | |
| or in $HOME/.config/rar if XDG_CONFIG_HOME environment variable | |
| isn't defined. | |
| RAR and UnRAR for Windows read configuration information from rar.ini file, | |
| placed in the same directory as the rar.exe file. | |
| This file can contain the following string: | |
| switches=<any RAR switches separated by spaces> | |
| For example: | |
| switches=-m5 -s | |
| It is also possible to specify separate switch sets for individual | |
| RAR commands using the following syntax: | |
| switches_<command>=<any RAR switches separated by spaces> | |
| For example: | |
| switches_a=-m5 -s | |
| switches_x=-o+ | |
| Environment variable | |
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | |
| Default parameters may be added to the RAR command line by establishing | |
| an environment variable "RARINISWITCHES". | |
| For instance, in Unix systems following lines may be added to your | |
| profile: | |
| RARINISWITCHES='-s -md1024' | |
| export RARINISWITCHES | |
| RAR will use this string as default parameters in the command line and | |
| will create "solid" archives with 1024 MB sliding dictionary size. | |
| RAR handles options with priority as following: | |
| command line switches highest priority | |
| switches in the RARINISWITCHES variable lower priority | |
| switches saved in configuration file lowest priority | |
| Log file | |
| ~~~~~~~~ | |
| If switch -ilog is specified in the command line or configuration file, | |
| RAR will write informational messages about errors encountered while | |
| processing archives into a log file. Read the switch -ilog description | |
| for more details. | |
| The file order list for solid archiving - rarfiles.lst | |
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | |
| rarfiles.lst contains a user-defined file list, which tells RAR | |
| the order in which to add files to a solid archive. It may contain | |
| file names, wildcards and special entry - $default. The default | |
| entry defines the place in order list for files not matched | |
| with other entries in this file. The comment character is ';'. | |
| In Windows this file should be placed in the same directory as RAR | |
| or in %APPDATA%\WinRAR directory, in Unix systems - to the user's home | |
| directory or in /etc. | |
| Tips to provide improved compression and speed of operation: | |
| - similar files should be grouped together in the archive; | |
| - frequently accessed files should be placed at the beginning. | |
| Normally masks placed nearer to the top of list have a higher priority, | |
| but there is an exception from this rule. If rarfiles.lst contains such | |
| two masks that all files matched by one mask are also matched by another, | |
| that mask which matches a smaller subset of file names will have higher | |
| priority regardless of its position in the list. For example, if you have | |
| *.cpp and f*.cpp masks, f*.cpp has a higher priority, so the position of | |
| 'filename.cpp' will be chosen according to 'f*.cpp', not '*.cpp'. | |
| RAR command line syntax | |
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | |
| Syntax | |
| RAR <command> [ -<switches> ] <archive> [ <@listfiles...> ] | |
| [ <files...> ] [ <path_to_extract\> ] | |
| Description | |
| Command is a single character or string specifying an action to be | |
| performed by RAR. Switches are designed to modify the way RAR performs | |
| such action. Other parameters are archive name and files to be archived | |
| or extracted. | |
| Listfiles are plain text files containing names of files to process. | |
| File names must start at the first column. It is possible to | |
| put comments to the listfile after // characters. For example, | |
| you can create backup.lst containing the following strings: | |
| c:\work\doc\*.txt //backup text documents | |
| c:\work\image\*.bmp //backup pictures | |
| c:\work\misc | |
| and then run: | |
| rar a backup @backup.lst | |
| If you wish to read file names from stdin (standard input), | |
| specify the empty listfile name (just @). | |
| By default, console RAR uses the single byte encoding in list files, | |
| but it can be redefined with -sc<charset>l switch. | |
| You can specify both usual file names and list files in the same | |
| command line. If neither files nor listfiles are specified, | |
| then *.* is implied and RAR will process all files. | |
| path_to_extract includes the destination directory name followed by | |
| a path separator character. For example, it can be c:\dest\ in Windows | |
| or data/ in Unix systems. It specifies the directory to place extracted | |
| files in 'x' and 'e' commands. This directory is created by RAR if it | |
| does not exist yet. Alternatively it can be set with -op<path> switch. | |
| Many RAR commands, such as extraction, test or list, allow to use | |
| wildcards in archive name. If no extension is specified in archive | |
| mask, RAR assumes .rar, so * means all archives with .rar extension. | |
| If you need to process all archives without extension, use *. mask. | |
| *.* mask selects all files. Wildcards in archive name are not allowed | |
| when archiving and deleting. | |
| In Unix systems you need to enclose RAR command line parameters | |
| containing wildcards in single or double quotes to prevent their expansion | |
| by Unix shell. For example, this command will extract *.asm files | |
| from all *.rar archives in current directory: | |
| rar e '*.rar' '*.asm' | |
| Command could be any of the following: | |
| a Add files to archive. | |
| Examples: | |
| 1) add all *.hlp files from the current directory to | |
| the archive help.rar: | |
| rar a help *.hlp | |
| 2) archive all files from the current directory and subdirectories | |
| to 362000 bytes size solid, self-extracting volumes | |
| and add the recovery record to each volume: | |
| rar a -r -v362 -s -sfx -rr save | |
| Because no file names are specified, all files (*) are assumed. | |
| 3) as a special exception, if directory name is specified as | |
| an argument and if directory name does not include file masks | |
| and trailing path separator, the entire contents of the directory | |
| and all subdirectories will be added to the archive even | |
| if switch -r is not specified. | |
| The following command will add all files from the directory | |
| Bitmaps and its subdirectories to the RAR archive Pictures.rar: | |
| rar a Pictures.rar Bitmaps | |
| 4) if directory name includes the trailing path separator, | |
| normal rules apply and you need to specify switch -r to process | |
| its subdirectories. | |
| The following command will add all files from directory Bitmaps, | |
| but not from its subdirectories, because switch -r is not | |
| specified: | |
| rar a Pictures.rar Bitmaps\* | |
| c Add archive comment. Comments are displayed while the archive is | |
| being processed. Comment length is limited to 256 KB. | |
| Examples: | |
| rar c distrib.rar | |
| Also comments may be added from a file using -z[file] switch. | |
| The following command adds a comment from info.txt file: | |
| rar c -zinfo.txt dummy | |
| ch Change archive parameters. | |
| This command can be used with most of archive modification | |
| switches to modify archive parameters. It is especially | |
| convenient for switches like -cl, -cu, -tl, which do not | |
| have a dedicated command. | |
| It is not able to recompress, encrypt or decrypt archive data | |
| and it cannot merge or create volumes. If no switches are | |
| specified, 'ch' command just copies the archive data without | |
| modification. | |
| If used with -amr switch to restore the saved archive name | |
| and time, other archive modification switches are ignored. | |
| Example: | |
| Set archive time to latest file: | |
| rar ch -tl files.rar | |
| cw Write archive comment to specified file. | |
| Format of output file depends on -sc switch. | |
| If output file name is not specified, comment data will be | |
| sent to stdout. | |
| Examples: | |
| 1) rar cw arc comment.txt | |
| 2) rar cw -scuc arc unicode.txt | |
| 3) rar cw arc | |
| d Delete files from archive. If this command removes all files | |
| from archive, the empty archive is removed. | |
| e Extract files without archived paths. | |
| Extract files excluding their path component, so all files | |
| are created in the same destination directory. | |
| Use 'x' command if you wish to extract full pathnames. | |
| Example: | |
| rar e -or html.rar *.css css\ | |
| extract all *.css files from html.rar archive to 'css' directory | |
| excluding archived paths. Rename extracted files automatically | |
| in case several files have the same name. | |
| f Freshen files in archive. Updates archived files older | |
| than files to add. This command will not add new files | |
| to the archive. | |
| i[i|c|h|t]=<string> | |
| Find string in archives. | |
| Supports following optional parameters: | |
| i - case insensitive search (default); | |
| c - case sensitive search; | |
| h - hexadecimal search; | |
| t - use ANSI, UTF-8, UTF-16 and OEM (Windows only) | |
| character tables; | |
| If no parameters are specified, it is possible to use | |
| the simplified command syntax i<string> instead of i=<string> | |
| It is allowed to specify 't' modifier with other parameters, | |
| for example, ict=string performs case sensitive search | |
| using all mentioned above character tables. | |
| Examples: | |
| 1) rar "ic=first level" -r c:\*.rar *.txt | |
| Perform case sensitive search of "first level" string | |
| in *.txt files in *.rar archives on the disk c: | |
| 2) rar ih=f0e0aeaeab2d83e3a9 -r e:\texts\*.rar | |
| Search for hex string f0 e0 ae ae ab 2d 83 e3 a9 | |
| in rar archives in e:\texts directory. | |
| k Lock archive. | |
| RAR cannot modify locked archives, so locking important archives | |
| prevents their accidental modification by RAR. Such protection | |
| might be especially useful in case of RAR commands processing | |
| archives in groups. | |
| This command is not intended or able to prevent modification | |
| by other tools or willful third party. It implements a safety | |
| measure only for accidental data change by RAR. | |
| Example: | |
| rar k final.rar | |
| l[t[a],b] | |
| List archive contents [technical [all], bare]. | |
| 'l' command lists archived file attributes, size, date, | |
| time and name, one file per line. If file is encrypted, | |
| line starts from '*' character. | |
| 'lt' displays the detailed file information in multiline mode. | |
| This information includes file checksum value, host OS, | |
| compression options and other parameters. | |
| 'lta' provide the detailed information not only for files, | |
| but also for service headers like NTFS streams | |
| or file security data. | |
| 'lb' lists bare file names with path, one per line, | |
| without any additional information. | |
| You can use -v switch to list contents of all volumes | |
| in volume set: rar l -v vol.part1.rar | |
| Commands 'lt', 'lta' and 'lb' are equal to 'vt', 'vta' | |
| and 'vb' correspondingly. | |
| m[f] Move to archive [files only]. Moving files and directories | |
| results in the files and directories being erased upon | |
| successful completion of the packing operation. Directories will | |
| not be removed if 'f' modifier is used and/or '-ed' switch is | |
| applied. | |
| p Print file to stdout. | |
| Send unpacked file data to stdout. Informational messages | |
| are suppressed with this command, so they are not mixed | |
| with file data. | |
| r Repair archive. Archive repairing is performed in two stages. | |
| First, the damaged archive is searched for a recovery record | |
| (see 'rr' command). If archive contains the previously added | |
| recovery record and if damaged data area is continuous | |
| and smaller than error correction code size in recovery record, | |
| chance of successful archive reconstruction is high. | |
| When this stage has been completed, a new archive is created, | |
| named as fixed.arcname.rar, where 'arcname' is the original | |
| (damaged) archive name. | |
| If broken archive does not contain a recovery record or if | |
| archive is not completely recovered due to major damage, | |
| second stage is performed. During this stage only the archive | |
| structure is reconstructed and it is impossible to recover | |
| files which fail checksum validation, it is still possible, | |
| however, to recover undamaged files, which were inaccessible | |
| due to the broken archive structure. Mostly this is useful | |
| for non-solid archives. This stage is never efficient | |
| for archives with encrypted file headers, which can be repaired | |
| only if recovery record is present. | |
| When the second stage is completed, the reconstructed archive | |
| is saved as rebuilt.arcname.rar, where 'arcname' is | |
| the original archive name. | |
| By default, repaired archives are created in the current | |
| directory, but you can append an optional destpath\ parameter | |
| to specify another destination directory. | |
| Example: | |
| rar r buggy.rar c:\fixed\ | |
| repair buggy.rar and place the result to 'c:\fixed' directory. | |
| rc Reconstruct missing and damaged volumes using recovery volumes | |
| (.rev files). You need to specify any existing .rar or .rev | |
| volume as the archive name. | |
| Example: | |
| rar rc backup.part03.rar | |
| Read 'rv' command description for information about | |
| recovery volumes. | |
| rn Rename archived files. | |
| The command syntax is: | |
| rar rn <arcname> <srcname1> <destname1> ... <srcnameN> <destnameN> | |
| For example, the following command: | |
| rar rn data.rar readme.txt readme.bak info.txt info.bak | |
| will rename readme.txt to readme.bak and info.txt to info.bak | |
| in the archive data.rar. | |
| It is allowed to use wildcards in the source and destination | |
| names for simple name transformations like changing file | |
| extensions. For example: | |
| rar rn data.rar *.txt *.bak | |
| will rename all *.txt files to *.bak. | |
| RAR does not check if the destination file name is already | |
| present in the archive, so you need to be careful to avoid | |
| duplicated names. It is especially important when using | |
| wildcards. Such a command is potentially dangerous, because | |
| a wrong wildcard may corrupt all archived names. | |
| rr[N] Add the data recovery record. | |
| Recovery record is the data area, optionally added to archive | |
| and containing error correction codes, namely Reed-Solomon codes | |
| for RAR 5.0 archive format. While it increases the archive size, | |
| it helps to recover archived files in case of disk failure | |
| or data loss of other kind, provided that damage is not too | |
| severe. Such recovery can be done with 'R' repair command. | |
| Optional 'N' parameter defines the recovery record size | |
| as a percent of archive size. If it is omitted, 3% is assumed. | |
| Maximum allowed recovery record size is 1000%. Larger recovery | |
| records are processed slower both when creating and repairing. | |
| Due to service data overhead, the actual resulting recovery record | |
| size only approximately matches the user defined percent | |
| and difference is larger for smaller archives. | |
| In case of a single continuous damage, typically it is possible | |
| to restore slightly less data than recovery record size. | |
| Recoverable data size can be lower for multiple damages. | |
| If a recovery record is partially broken, its remaining valid data | |
| still can be utilized to repair files. Repair command does not | |
| fix broken blocks in recovery record itself, only file data | |
| is corrected. After successful archive repair, you may need to | |
| create a new recovery record for rescued files. | |
| While the recovery record improves chances to repair damaged | |
| archives, it does not guarantee the successful recovery. | |
| Consider combining the recovery record feature with making | |
| multiple archive copies to different media for important data. | |
| Example: | |
| rar rr5 arcname | |
| add the recovery record of 5% of archive size. | |
| rv[N] Create recovery volumes (.rev files), which can be later | |
| used to reconstruct missing and damaged files in a volume | |
| set. This command makes sense only for multivolume archives | |
| and you need to specify the name of the first volume | |
| in the set as the archive name. For example: | |
| rar rv3 data.part01.rar | |
| This feature may be useful for backups or, for example, | |
| when you posted a multivolume archive to a newsgroup | |
| and a part of subscribers did not receive some of the files. | |
| Reposting recovery volumes instead of usual volumes | |
| may reduce the total number of files to repost. | |
| Each recovery volume is able to reconstruct one missing | |
| or damaged RAR volume. For example, if you have 30 volumes | |
| and 3 recovery volumes, you are able to reconstruct any | |
| 3 missing volumes. If the number of .rev files is less than | |
| the number of missing volumes, reconstructing is impossible. | |
| The total number of usual and recovery volumes must not | |
| exceed 65535. | |
| Original RAR volumes must not be modified after creating | |
| recovery volumes. Recovery algorithm uses data stored both | |
| in REV files and in RAR volumes to rebuild missing RAR volumes. | |
| So if you modify RAR volumes, for example, lock them, after | |
| creating REV files, recovery process will fail. | |
| Additionally to recovery data, RAR 5.0 recovery volumes | |
| also store service information such as checksums of protected | |
| RAR files. So they are slightly larger than RAR volumes | |
| which they protect. If you plan to copy individual RAR and REV | |
| files to some removable media, you need to take it into account | |
| and specify RAR volume size by a few kilobytes smaller | |
| than media size. | |
| The optional <N> parameter specifies a number of recovery | |
| volumes to create. It must not be larger than tenfold amount | |
| of RAR volumes. Values exceeding the threshold are adjusted | |
| automatically. | |
| You may also append a percent or 'p' character to this parameter, | |
| in such case the number of creating .rev files will be equal to | |
| this percent taken from the total number of RAR volumes. | |
| For example: | |
| rar rv15% data.part01.rar | |
| If <N> parameter is omitted, it is set to 10%. | |
| RAR reconstructs missing and damaged volumes either when | |
| using 'rc' command or automatically, if it cannot locate | |
| the next volume and finds the required number of .rev files | |
| when unpacking. | |
| Original copies of damaged volumes are renamed to *.bad | |
| before reconstruction. For example, volname.part03.rar | |
| will be renamed to volname.part03.rar.bad. | |
| s[name] Convert archive to SFX. The archive is merged with a SFX module | |
| (using a module in file default.sfx or specified in the switch). | |
| In Windows version default.sfx should be placed in the same | |
| directory as the rar.exe, in Unix systems - in the user's home | |
| directory, in /usr/lib or /usr/local/lib. | |
| Windows version uses default32.sfx name for 32-bit SFX module. | |
| s- Remove SFX module from the already existing SFX archive. | |
| RAR creates a new archive without SFX module, the original | |
| SFX archive is not deleted. | |
| t Test archive files. This command performs a dummy file | |
| extraction, writing nothing to the output stream, in order to | |
| validate the specified file(s). | |
| Examples: | |
| Test archives in current directory: | |
| rar t * | |
| or for Unix systems: | |
| rar t '*' | |
| User may test archives in all sub-directories, starting | |
| with the current path: | |
| rar t -r * | |
| or for Unix systems: | |
| rar t -r '*' | |
| u Update files in archive. Adds files not yet in the archive | |
| and updates archived files that are older than files to add. | |
| v[t[a],b] | |
| Verbosely list archive contents [technical [all], bare]. | |
| 'v' command lists archived file attributes, size, packed size, | |
| compression ratio, date, time, checksum and name, one file | |
| per line. If file is encrypted, line starts from '*' character. | |
| For BLAKE2sp checksum only two first and one last symbol are | |
| displayed. | |
| 'vt' displays the detailed file information in multiline mode. | |
| This information includes file checksum value, host OS, | |
| compression options and other parameters. | |
| 'vta' provide the detailed information not only for files, | |
| but also for service headers like NTFS streams | |
| or file security data. | |
| 'vb' lists bare file names with path, one per line, | |
| without any additional information. | |
| You can use -v switch to list contents of all volumes | |
| in volume set: rar v -v vol.part1.rar | |
| Commands 'vt', 'vta' and 'vb' are equal to 'lt', 'lta' | |
| and 'lb' correspondingly. | |
| x Extract files with full path. | |
| Examples: | |
| 1) extract 10cents.txt to current directory not displaying | |
| the archive comment | |
| rar x -c- dime 10cents.txt | |
| 2) extract *.txt from docs.rar to c:\docs directory | |
| rar x docs.rar *.txt c:\docs\ | |
| 3) extract the entire contents of docs.rar to current directory | |
| rar x docs.rar | |
| Switches (used in conjunction with a command): | |
| -? Display help on commands and switches. | |
| Same as none or illegal command line option are entered. | |
| -- Stop switches scanning | |
| This switch tells to RAR that there are no more switches | |
| in the command line. It could be useful, if either archive | |
| or file name starts from '-' character. Without '--' switch | |
| such a name would be treated as a switch. | |
| Example: | |
| add all files from the current directory to the solid archive | |
| '-StrangeName' | |
| RAR a -s -- -StrangeName | |
| -@[+] Disable [enable] file lists | |
| RAR treats command line parameters starting from '@' character | |
| as file lists. So by default, RAR attempts to read 'filename' | |
| filelist, when encountering '@filename' parameter. | |
| But if '@filename' file exists, RAR treats the parameter | |
| as '@filename' file instead of reading the file list. | |
| Switch -@[+] allows to avoid this ambiguity and strictly | |
| define how to handle parameters starting from '@' character. | |
| If you specify -@, all such parameters found after this switch | |
| will be considered as file names, not file lists. | |
| If you specify -@+, all such parameters found after this switch | |
| will be considered as file lists, not file names. | |
| This switch does not affect processing parameters located | |
| before it. | |
| Example: | |
| test the archived file '@home' | |
| rar t -@ notes.rar @home | |
| -ac Clear Archive attribute after compression or extraction | |
| (Windows version only). | |
| If -ac is specified when archiving, "Archive" file attribute | |
| is cleared for successfully compressed files. When extracting, | |
| -ac will clear "Archive" attribute for extracted files. | |
| This switch does not affect directory attributes. | |
| -ad[1,2] | |
| Alternate destination path. | |
| This option may be useful when unpacking a group of archives. | |
| Switches -ad and -ad1 create a separate directory for files | |
| unpacked from each archive. These separate directories are | |
| created in destination directory for -ad and in each archive's | |
| directory for -ad1. | |
| Switch -ad2 places unpacked files directly to each archive's | |
| directory. Separate directories are not created. | |
| Destination directory parameter is ignored for -ad1 and -ad2 | |
| switches. | |
| Examples: | |
| 1) rar x -ad *.rar data\ | |
| RAR will create subdirectories below 'data' | |
| for every unpacking archive. | |
| 2) rar x -r -ad1 arc\*.rar | |
| RAR will recursively scan 'arc' directory for *.rar archives | |
| and create subdirectories in each archive's directory. | |
| -ag[format] | |
| Generate archive name using the current date and time. | |
| Appends the current date string to an archive name when | |
| creating or processing an archive. Useful for daily backups. | |
| Format of the appending string is defined by the optional | |
| "format" parameter or by "YYYYMMDDHHMMSS" if this parameter | |
| is absent. The format string may include the following | |
| characters: | |
| Y - year | |
| M - 1 or 2 'M' define the month number | |
| MMM - 3 or more 'M' define the month name as a text string | |
| O - month name as a text string regardless of characters number | |
| W - a week number (a week starts with Monday) | |
| A - day of week number (Monday is 1, Sunday - 7) | |
| K - day of week name as a text string | |
| D - day of month | |
| E - day of year | |
| H - hours | |
| M - minutes (first two 'M' after hours treated as minutes) | |
| I - minutes (treated as minutes regardless of hours position) | |
| S - seconds | |
| N - archive number. RAR searches for already existing archive | |
| with generated name and if found, increments the archive | |
| number until generating a unique name. 'N' format character | |
| is not supported when creating volumes. | |
| When performing non-archiving operations like extracting, | |
| RAR selects the existing archive preceding the first | |
| unused name or sets N to 1 if no such archive exists. | |
| Each of format string characters listed above represents only | |
| one character added to archive name. For example, use WW for | |
| two digit week number or YYYY to define four digit year. | |
| Excessive format characters exceeding the available field width | |
| are ignored. | |
| If the first character in the format string is '+', positions | |
| of the date string and base archive name are exchanged, | |
| so a date will precede an archive name. | |
| If the first character in the format string is 'F', the rest of | |
| string specifies the default format string for -ag switch. | |
| Such -agf<default_format> switch has a practical value only | |
| if placed to rar.ini configuration file or RARINISWITCHES | |
| environment variable. For example, if we set RARINISWITCHES | |
| environment variable to -agfYYYY-MMM-DD, we can use -ag without | |
| a parameter with YYYY-MMM-DD format string assumed. | |
| The format string may contain optional text enclosed in '{' | |
| and '}' characters. This text is inserted into archive name. | |
| All other characters are added to an archive name without | |
| changes. | |
| If you need to process an already existing archive, be careful | |
| with -ag switch. Depending on the format string and time passed | |
| since previous -ag use, generated and existing archive names | |
| may mismatch. In this case RAR will create or open a new archive | |
| instead of processing the already existing one. You may use | |
| -log switch to write the generated archive name to a file | |
| and then read it from file for further processing. | |
| Examples: | |
| 1) use the default YYYYMMDDHHMMSS format | |
| rar a -ag backup | |
| 2) use DD-MMM-YY format | |
| rar t -agDD-MMM-YY backup | |
| 3) use YYYYMMDDHHMM format, place date before 'backup' | |
| rar a -ag+YYYYMMDDHHMM backup | |
| 4) use YYYY-WW-A format, include fields description | |
| rar a -agYYYY{year}-WW{week}-A{wday} backup | |
| 5) use YYYYMMDD and the archive number. It allows to generate | |
| unique names even when YYYYMMDD format mask used more than | |
| once in the same day | |
| rar a -agYYYYMMDD-NN backup | |
| -ai Ignore file attributes. | |
| If this switch is used when extracting, RAR does not set | |
| general file attributes stored in archive to extracted files. | |
| This switch preserves attributes assigned by operating system | |
| to a newly created file. | |
| If this switch is used when archiving, predefined values, | |
| typical for file and directory, are stored instead of actual | |
| attributes. | |
| In Windows it affects archive, system, hidden and read-only | |
| attributes. in Unix systems - user, group, and other file | |
| permissions. | |
| -am[s,r] | |
| Archive name and time [save, restore] | |
| Switch -ams preserves the archive metadata, which includes | |
| the original archive name and creation time. It can be used | |
| with archive modification commands, such as 'a' or 'ch'. | |
| Saved metadata is displayed in header of 'l' and 'v' archive | |
| list commands. | |
| If used together with -tk or -tl switches, -ams saves | |
| the archive modification time set by these switches. | |
| Switch -amr renames an archive to saved name. Also it sets | |
| the stored time as the archive creation and modification time | |
| in Windows and as the archive modification time in Unix systems. | |
| It can be used together with 'ch' command only, which ignores | |
| all other archive modification switches if -amr is specified. | |
| Switch -am without 's' and 'r' modifiers is treated as -ams. | |
| Examples: | |
| 1) create files.rar and save its metadata | |
| rar a -am files.rar | |
| 2) restore the original name of myfiles.rar | |
| rar ch -amr myfiles.rar | |
| -ao Add files with "Archive" attribute set | |
| (Windows version only). | |
| If -ao is used when archiving, only files with "Archive" | |
| file attribute will be added to archive. This switch does not | |
| affect directories, so all matching directories are added | |
| regardless of their attributes. You can also specify -ed switch | |
| if you prefer to omit all directory records. | |
| Example: | |
| add all disk C: files with "Archive" attribute set | |
| to the 'f:backup' and clear files "Archive" attribute | |
| rar a -r -ac -ao f:backup c:\*.* | |
| -ap<path> | |
| Set path inside archive. This path is merged to file | |
| names when adding files to an archive and removed | |
| from file names when extracting. | |
| For example, if you wish to add the file 'readme.txt' | |
| to the directory 'DOCS\ENG' of archive 'release', | |
| you may run: | |
| rar a -apDOCS\ENG release readme.txt | |
| or to extract 'ENG' to the current directory: | |
| rar x -apDOCS release DOCS\ENG\*.* | |
| -as Synchronize archive contents | |
| If this switch is used when archiving, those archived files | |
| which are not present in the list of the currently added | |
| files, will be deleted from the archive. It is convenient to | |
| use this switch in combination with -u (update) to synchronize | |
| contents of archive and archiving directory. | |
| For example, after the command: | |
| rar a -u -as backup sources\*.cpp | |
| the archive 'backup.rar' will contain only *.cpp files | |
| from directory 'sources', all other files will be deleted | |
| from the archive. It looks similar to creating a new archive, | |
| but with one important exception: if no files are modified | |
| since the last backup, the operation is performed much faster | |
| than the creation of a new archive. | |
| -cfg- Ignore configuration file and RARINISWITCHES environment variable. | |
| -cl Convert file names to lower case. | |
| -cu Convert file names to upper case. | |
| -c- Disable comments show. | |
| -df Delete files after archiving | |
| Move files to archive. This switch in combination with | |
| the command "A" performs the same action as the command "M". | |
| -dh Open shared files | |
| Allows to process files opened by other applications | |
| for writing. | |
| This switch helps if an application allowed read access | |
| to file, but if all types of file access are prohibited, | |
| the file open operation will still fail. | |
| This option could be dangerous, because it allows | |
| to archive a file, which at the same time is modified | |
| by another application, so use it carefully. | |
| -dr Delete files to Recycle Bin | |
| Delete files after archiving and place them to Recycle Bin. | |
| Available in Windows version only. | |
| -ds Do not sort files while adding to a solid archive. | |
| -dw Wipe files after archiving | |
| Delete files after archiving. Before deleting file data | |
| are overwritten by zero bytes to prevent recovery of deleted | |
| files, file is truncated and renamed to temporary name. | |
| Please be aware that such approach is designed for usual | |
| hard disks, but may fail to overwrite the original file data | |
| on solid state disks, as result of SSD wear leveling technology | |
| and more complicated data addressing. | |
| -ed Do not add empty directories | |
| This switch indicates that directory records are not to be | |
| stored in the created archive. When extracting such archives, | |
| RAR creates non-empty directories based on paths of files | |
| contained in them. Information about empty directories is | |
| lost. All attributes of non-empty directories except a name | |
| (access rights, streams, etc.) will be lost as well, so use | |
| this switch only if you do not need to preserve such information. | |
| If -ed is used with 'm' command or -df switch, RAR will not | |
| remove empty directories. | |
| -ep Exclude paths from names. This switch enables files to be | |
| added to an archive without including the path information. | |
| This could result in multiple files with the same name | |
| existing in the archive. | |
| If used when extracting, archived paths are ignored | |
| for extracted files, so all files are created in the same | |
| destination directory. | |
| -ep1 Exclude base dir from names. Do not store or extract the path | |
| entered in the command line. Ignored if path includes wildcards. | |
| Examples: | |
| 1) add all files and directories from 'tmp' directory to archive | |
| 'test', but exclude 'tmp\' from archived names path: | |
| rar a -ep1 -r test tmp\* | |
| This is an equivalent to commands: | |
| cd tmp | |
| rar a -r ..\test | |
| cd .. | |
| 2) extract files matching images\* mask to dest\ directory, | |
| but remove 'images\' from paths of created files: | |
| rar x -ep1 data images\* dest\ | |
| -ep2 Expand paths to full. Store full file paths (except the drive | |
| letter and leading path separator) when archiving. | |
| -ep3 Expand paths to full including the drive letter. | |
| Windows version only. | |
| This switch stores full file paths including the drive | |
| letter if used when archiving. Drive separators (colons) | |
| are replaced by underscore characters. | |
| If you use -ep3 when extracting, it will change | |
| underscores back to colons and create unpacked files | |
| in their original directories and disks. If the user | |
| also specified a destination path, it will be ignored. | |
| It also converts UNC paths from \\server\share to | |
| __server\share when archiving and restores them to | |
| the original state when extracting. | |
| This switch can help to backup several disks to the same | |
| archive. For example, you may run: | |
| rar a -ep3 -r backup.rar c:\ d:\ e:\ | |
| to create backup and: | |
| rar x -ep3 backup.rar | |
| to restore it. | |
| But be cautious and use -ep3 only if you are sure that | |
| extracting archive does not contain any malicious files. | |
| In other words, use it if you have created an archive yourself | |
| or completely trust its author. This switch allows to overwrite | |
| any file in any location on your computer including important | |
| system files and should normally be used only for the purpose | |
| of backup and restore. | |
| -ep4<path> | |
| Exclude the path prefix from names. | |
| If this switch is used when archiving, the specified path | |
| is excluded from archived names if it is found in the beginning | |
| of such name, but does not match the entire name. Comparison | |
| is performed with names already prepared to store in archive, | |
| with removed drive letters and leading path separators. | |
| For example: | |
| rar a -ep4texts\books archive c:\texts\books\technical | |
| removes "text\books" from archived names, so they start | |
| from 'technical'. Since comparison is performed with names, | |
| as they are stored in archive, we can't use -ep4c:\texts\books. | |
| If this switch is used when extracting, it works similarly to | |
| -ap<path> switch. Path is removed if it is present | |
| in the beginning of archived file name. For example: | |
| rar x -ep4texts\books archive | |
| removes 'texts\books' from those archived paths, | |
| which start from it. | |
| -e[+]<attr> | |
| Specifies file exclude or include attributes mask. | |
| <attr> is a number in the decimal, octal (with leading '0') | |
| or hex (with leading '0x') format. | |
| By default, without '+' sign before <attr>, this switch | |
| defines the exclude mask. So if result of bitwise AND between | |
| <attr> and file attributes is nonzero, file would not be | |
| processed. | |
| If '+' sign is present, it specifies the include mask. | |
| Only those files which have at least one attribute specified | |
| in the mask will be processed. | |
| In Windows version is also possible to use symbols D, S, H, | |
| A and R instead of a digital mask to denote directories | |
| and files with system, hidden, archive and read-only attributes. | |
| The order in which the attributes are given is not significant. | |
| Unix version supports D and V symbols to define directory | |
| and device attributes. | |
| It is allowed to specify both -e<attr> and -e+<attr> | |
| in the same command line. | |
| Examples: | |
| 1) archive only directory names without their contents | |
| rar a -r -e+d dirs | |
| 2) do not compress system and hidden files: | |
| rar a -esh files | |
| 3) do not extract read-only files: | |
| rar x -er files | |
| -f Freshen files. May be used with archive extraction or creation. | |
| The command string "a -f" is equivalent to the command 'f', you | |
| could also use the switch '-f' with the commands 'm' or 'mf'. If | |
| the switch '-f' is used with the commands 'x' or 'e', then only | |
| old files would be replaced with new versions extracted from the | |
| archive. | |
| -hp[p] Encrypt both file data and headers. | |
| This switch is similar to -p[pwd], but switch -p encrypts | |
| only file data and leaves other information like file names | |
| visible. This switch encrypts all sensitive archive areas | |
| including file data, file names, sizes, attributes, comments | |
| and other blocks, so it provides a higher security level. | |
| Without a password it is impossible to view even the list of | |
| files in archive encrypted with -hp. | |
| Example: | |
| rar a -hpfGzq5yKw secret report.txt | |
| will add the file report.txt to the encrypted archive | |
| secret.rar using the password 'fGzq5yKw' | |
| -ht[b|c] | |
| Select hash type [BLAKE2,CRC32] for file checksum. | |
| File data integrity in RAR archive is protected by checksums | |
| calculated and stored for every archived file. | |
| By default, RAR uses CRC32 function to calculate the checksum. | |
| RAR 5.0 archive format also allows to select BLAKE2sp hash | |
| function instead of CRC32. | |
| Specify -htb switch for BLAKE2sp and -htc for CRC32 hash function. | |
| Since CRC32 is the default algorithm, you may need -htc only to | |
| override -htb in RAR configuration. | |
| CRC32 output is 32 bit length. While CRC32 properties are | |
| suitable to detect most of unintentional data errors, | |
| it is not reliable enough to verify file data identity. | |
| In other words, if two files have the same CRC32, | |
| it does not guarantee that file contents is the same. | |
| BLAKE2sp output is 256 bit. Being a cryptographically strong | |
| hash function, it practically guarantees that if two files | |
| have the same value of BLAKE2sp, their contents is the same. | |
| BLAKE2sp error detection property is also more reliable than | |
| in shorter CRC32. | |
| Since BLAKE2sp output is longer, resulting archive is | |
| slightly larger for -htb switch. | |
| If archive headers are unencrypted (no switch -hp), checksums | |
| for encrypted RAR 5.0 files are modified using a special | |
| password dependent algorithm, to make impossible guessing | |
| file contents based on checksums. Do not expect such encrypted | |
| file checksums to match usual CRC32 and BLAKE2sp values. | |
| This switch is supported only by RAR 5.0 format. | |
| You can see checksums of archived files using 'vt' or 'lt' | |
| commands. | |
| Example: | |
| rar a -htb lists.rar *.lst | |
| will add *.lst to lists.rar using BLAKE2sp for file checksums. | |
| -id[c,d,n,p,q] | |
| Display or disable messages. | |
| Switch -idc disables the copyright string. | |
| Switch -idd disables "Done" string at the end of operation. | |
| Switch -idn disables archived names output when creating, | |
| testing or extracting an archive. It disables directory creation | |
| messages when unpacking a file to non-existing directory. | |
| It can affect some other archive processing commands as well. | |
| It does not hide other messages and total percentage indicator. | |
| Minor visual artifacts, such as percentage indicator overwriting | |
| few last characters of error messages, are possible with -idn. | |
| Switch -idp disables the percentage indicator. | |
| Switch -idq turns on the quiet mode, so only error messages | |
| and questions are displayed. | |
| It is allowed to use several modifiers at once, | |
| so switch -idcdp is correct. | |
| -ieml[.][addr] | |
| Send archive by email. Windows version only. | |
| Attach an archive created or updated by the add command | |
| to email message. You need to have a MAPI compliant email | |
| client to use this switch (most modern email programs | |
| support MAPI interface). | |
| You may enter a destination email address directly | |
| in the switch or leave it blank. In the latter case you | |
| will be asked for it by your email program. It is possible | |
| to specify several addresses separated by commas or semicolons. | |
| If you append a dot character to -ieml, an archive will be | |
| deleted after it was successfully attached to an email. | |
| If the switch is used when creating a multivolume archive, | |
| every volume is attached to a separate email message. | |
| -ierr Send all messages to stderr. | |
| -ilog[name] | |
| Log errors to file. | |
| Write error messages to rar.log file. If optional 'name' | |
| parameter is not specified, the log file is created | |
| using the following defaults: | |
| Unix systems: .rarlog file in the user's home directory; | |
| Windows: rar.log file in %APPDATA%\WinRAR directory. | |
| If 'name' parameter includes a file name without path, | |
| RAR will create the log file in the default directory | |
| mentioned above using the specified name. Include both path | |
| and name to 'name' parameter if you wish to change | |
| the location of log file. | |
| By default, log file uses UTF-16 little endian encoding, | |
| but it can be changed with -sc<charset>g switch, such as -scag | |
| for native single byte encoding. | |
| Example: | |
| rar a -ilogc:\log\backup.log backup d:\docs | |
| will create c:\log\backup.log log file in case of errors. | |
| -inul Disable all messages. | |
| -ioff[n] | |
| Turn PC off after completing an operation. | |
| Use -ioff or -ioff1 to turn PC off, -ioff2 to hibernate, | |
| -ioff3 to sleep and -ioff4 to restart. Appropriate power features | |
| must be supported by operating system. | |
| If several RAR copies are started with this switch, | |
| PC is turned off by a copy finished last. | |
| Windows version only. | |
| -isnd[-] | |
| Control notification sounds. | |
| Use -isnd to enable notification sounds and -isnd- to disable them. | |
| -iver Display the version number and quit. You can run just "RAR -iver". | |
| -k Lock archive. | |
| Prevents accidental archive modification by RAR. | |
| See the 'k' command description for details. | |
| Example: | |
| rar a -k final.rar srcfiles | |
| -kb Keep broken extracted files. | |
| RAR, by default, deletes files with checksum errors | |
| after extraction. The switch -kb specifies that files | |
| with checksum errors should not be deleted. | |
| -log[fmt][=name] | |
| Write names to log file. | |
| This switch allows to write archive and file names to specified | |
| text file in archiving, extracting, deleting and listing commands. | |
| Its behavior is defined by 'fmt' string, which can include one | |
| or more of following characters: | |
| A - write archive names to log file. If RAR creates or processes | |
| volumes, all volume names are logged. | |
| F - write processed file names to log file. It includes | |
| files added to archive and extracted, deleted or listed | |
| files inside of archive. | |
| P - if log file with specified name exists, append data | |
| to existing file instead of creating a new one. | |
| U - write data in Unicode format. | |
| If neither 'A' nor 'F' are specified, 'A' is assumed. | |
| 'name' parameter allows to specify the name of log file. | |
| It must be separated from 'fmt' string by '=' character. | |
| If 'name' is not present, RAR will use the default rarinfo.log | |
| file name. | |
| It is allowed to specify several -log switches in the same | |
| command line. | |
| This switch can be particularly useful, when you need to process | |
| an archive created with -ag or -v switches in a batch script. | |
| You can specify -loga=arcname.txt when creating an archive | |
| and then read an archive name generated by RAR from arcname.txt | |
| with an appropriate command. For example, in Windows batch file | |
| it can be: set /p name=<arcname.txt. | |
| Examples: | |
| 1) write names of created volumes to vollist.txt: | |
| rar a -v100m -loga=vollist.txt volume.rar c:\data | |
| 2) write the generated archive name to backup.txt in Unicode: | |
| rar a -ag -logau=backup.txt backup.rar myfiles\* | |
| 3) write names of tested volumes to vollist.txt and names | |
| of tested archived files inside of volumes to filelist.txt: | |
| rar t -log=vollist.txt -logf=filelist.txt volume.part01.rar | |
| -m<n> Set compression method: | |
| -m0 store do not compress file when adding to archive | |
| -m1 fastest use fastest method (less compressive) | |
| -m2 fast use fast compression method | |
| -m3 normal use normal (default) compression method | |
| -m4 good use good compression method (more | |
| compressive, but slower) | |
| -m5 best use best compression method (slightly more | |
| compressive, but slowest) | |
| If this switch is not specified, RAR uses -m3 method | |
| (normal compression). | |
| -mc<par> | |
| Set advanced compression parameters. | |
| Improper use of this switch may lead to suboptimal performance | |
| and compression. This switch has the following syntax: | |
| -mc[channels][mode][+ or -] | |
| where <mode> is the single character field defining | |
| the compression algorithm to be configured. | |
| Possible <mode> values are: | |
| D - delta compression; | |
| E - x86 executable compression; | |
| L - long range search; | |
| X - exhaustive search. | |
| '+' sign at the end of switch applies the selected algorithm | |
| to all processed data, '-' disables it completely. | |
| If no sign is specified, RAR chooses modes automatically, | |
| based on data and current compression method. | |
| Switch -mc- disables all modes. | |
| <Channels> parameter is used by delta compression and ignored | |
| by other modes. Available modes are described below. | |
| Delta compression | |
| Splits data to several single byte channels and calculates | |
| the difference between them. Can improve the compression ratio | |
| of table data. <Channels> is the number of byte channels | |
| from 1 to 31. | |
| x86 executable compression | |
| Can improve the compression ratio of 32 and 64 bit x86 executables. | |
| Long range search | |
| Enables the search algorithm designed to efficiently locate | |
| longer and more distant repeated data blocks. It can helps to | |
| improve the compression ratio and sometimes speed for redundant | |
| data like big text files. This algorithm increases memory | |
| requirements when archiving, but doesn't affect extraction | |
| memory requirements or speed. | |
| If neither -mcl+ nor -mcl- are specified, RAR applies the long | |
| range search depending on the compression method, dictionary size | |
| and other parameters. This algorithm is required and enabled | |
| automatically for dictionaries exceeding 4 GB, where it can't be | |
| turned off with -mcl- switch. | |
| Long range search mode is applicable to -m2..-m5 compression | |
| methods and ignored for -m1. | |
| Exhaustive search | |
| Enables much slower and more exhaustive repeated data search | |
| and compression algorithm. It might provide the additional | |
| compression gain on some types of redundant data, but at much | |
| lower speed. Long range search is needed to implement this mode | |
| efficiently, so -mcx activates it automatically. | |
| Example: | |
| RAR a -s -md1g -mcx texts *.txt | |
| create a solid archive with 1 GB dictionary and exhaustive search. | |
| -md[x]<size>[k,m,g] | |
| Select the dictionary size. | |
| Sliding dictionary is the memory area used by compression | |
| algorithm to find and compress repeated data patterns. | |
| If size of file to compress, or total files size in case | |
| of solid archive, is larger than dictionary size, increasing | |
| the dictionary is likely to increase the compression ratio, | |
| reduce the archiving speed and increase memory requirements. | |
| For RAR 5.0 archive format the dictionary size can be: | |
| 128 KB, 256 KB, 512 KB, 1 MB, 2 MB, 4 MB, 8 MB, 16 MB, | |
| 32 MB, 64 MB, 128 MB, 256 MB, 512 MB, 1 GB, 2 GB, 4 GB. | |
| RAR 7.0 extends the maximum dictionary size up to 64 GB | |
| and permits not power of 2 sizes for dictionaries exceeding 4 GB. | |
| Such archives can be unpacked by RAR 7.0 and newer. | |
| By default, RAR refuses to unpack archives with dictionary | |
| exceeding 4 GB. It is done to prevent the unexpected large memory | |
| allocation. Use -md<size> or -mdx<size> to allow unpacking | |
| dictionaries up to and including the specified size. | |
| Unlike -md<size>, -mdx<size> is applied to extraction only | |
| and can be added to rar.ini configuration file or RARINISWITCHES | |
| environment variable, not affecting archiving commands. | |
| 'k', 'm' and 'g' modifiers placed after the size, set kilobyte, | |
| megabyte and gigabyte units, like -md64m for 64 MB dictionary. | |
| If no modifier is present, megabytes are assumed for -md<size> | |
| and gigabytes for -mdx<size> switch, so -md64m and -md64 | |
| or -mdx8 and -mdx8g are equal. | |
| Compression memory requirements vary depending on the dictionary | |
| size and presence of long range search -mcl switch. | |
| Rough estimate is 7x of dictionary size for 1 GB and 1.5x | |
| for 64 GB dictionary. | |
| When extracting, slightly more than a single dictionary size | |
| is allocated. | |
| If size of all source files for solid archive or size of largest | |
| source file for non-solid archive is at least twice less than | |
| dictionary size, RAR can reduce the dictionary size. It helps | |
| to lower memory usage without decreasing compression. | |
| Default sliding dictionary size is 32 MB. | |
| Example: | |
| RAR a -s -md128 lib *.dll | |
| create a solid archive in RAR 5.0 format with 128 MB dictionary. | |
| -me[par] | |
| Set encryption parameters. | |
| Now only "s" parameter is supported. You can use -mes switch | |
| to skip encrypted files when extracting or testing. | |
| -mlp Use large memory pages. | |
| Use larger memory allocation units, which can improve archiving | |
| and, in some cases, extraction speed. Typically the performance | |
| gain is more significant for bigger compression dictionaries | |
| and slower compression methods. | |
| This switch requires "Lock pages in memory" privilege | |
| and if it is missing, RAR proposes to assign it to the current | |
| user account, making it available for other software too. | |
| Windows restart is necessary to activate the newly assigned | |
| privilege. | |
| Large memory pages can't be placed to Windows swap file | |
| and always occupy the physical memory. When this switch | |
| is present, Windows Task Manager can display incorrect | |
| memory usage values for RAR. | |
| Available in Windows version only. | |
| Example: | |
| rar a -mlp backup.rar data\* | |
| -ms[list] | |
| Specify file types to store. | |
| Specify file types, which will be stored without compression. | |
| This switch may be used to store already compressed files, | |
| which helps to increase archiving speed without noticeable | |
| loss in the compression ratio. | |
| Optional <list> parameter defines the list of file extensions | |
| separated by semicolons. For example, -msrar;zip;jpg will | |
| force RAR to store without compression all RAR and ZIP | |
| archives and JPG images. It is also allowed to specify wildcard | |
| file masks in the list, so -ms*.rar;*.zip;*.jpg will work too. | |
| Several -ms switches are permitted, such as -msrar -mszip | |
| instead of -msrar;zip. | |
| In Unix systems -ms switch containing several file types needs | |
| to be enclosed in quote marks. It protects semicolons from | |
| processing by Unix shell. Another solution is to use individual | |
| -ms<type> switches for every file type. | |
| If <list> is not specified, -ms switch will use the default | |
| set of extensions, which includes the following file types: | |
| 7z, ace, arj, bz2, cab, gz, jpeg, jpg, lha, lz, lzh, mp3, | |
| rar, taz, tbz2, tgz, txz, zst, xz, z, zip, zipx, tzst | |
| -mt<threads> | |
| Set the number of threads. | |
| <threads> parameter can take values from 1 to 64. | |
| It defines the recommended maximum number of active threads | |
| for compression algorithm also as for other RAR modules, | |
| which can start several threads. While RAR attempts to follow | |
| this recommendation, sometimes the real number of active | |
| threads can exceed the specified value. | |
| Change of <threads> parameter slightly affects the compression | |
| ratio, so archives created with different -mt switches | |
| will not be exactly the same even if all other compression | |
| settings are equal. | |
| If -mt switch is not specified, RAR will try to detect | |
| the number of available processors and select the optimal | |
| number of threads automatically. | |
| -n<f> Additionally filter included files. | |
| Apply the mask as an additional filter to included file list. | |
| Wildcards can be used both in the name and file parts of | |
| file mask. See switch -x description for details on mask syntax. | |
| You can specify the switch '-n' several times. | |
| This switch does not replace usual file masks, which still | |
| need to be entered in the command line. It is an additional | |
| filter limiting processed files only to those matching | |
| the include mask specified in -n switch. It can help to | |
| reduce the command line length sometimes. | |
| For example, if you need to compress all *.txt and *.lst | |
| files in directories Project and Info, you can enter: | |
| rar a -r text Project\*.txt Project\*.lst Info\*.txt Info\*.lst | |
| or using the switch -n: | |
| rar a -r -n*.txt -n*.lst text Project Info | |
| -n@<lf> Read additional filter masks from list file. | |
| Similar to -n<f> switch, but reads filter masks from | |
| the list file. If you use -n@ without the list file name | |
| parameter, it will read filter masks from stdin. | |
| This switch does not replace usual list files or file masks, | |
| which still need to be entered in the command line. | |
| It is an additional filter limiting processed files only to | |
| those matching the include mask specified in -n switch. | |
| Example: | |
| rar a -r -n@inclist.txt text Project Info @listfile.txt | |
| -oc Set NTFS Compressed attribute. Windows version only. | |
| This switch allows to restore NTFS Compressed attribute | |
| when extracting files. RAR saves Compressed file attribute | |
| when creating an archive, but does not restore it unless | |
| -oc switch is specified. | |
| -oh Save hard links as the link instead of the file. | |
| If archiving files include several hard links, store the first | |
| archived hard link as usual file and the rest of hard links | |
| in the same set as links to this first file. When extracting | |
| such files, RAR will create hard links instead of usual files. | |
| You must not delete or rename the first hard link in archive | |
| after the archive was created, because it will make extraction | |
| of following links impossible. If you modify the first link, | |
| all following links will also have the modified contents | |
| after extracting. Extraction command must involve the first | |
| hard link to create following hard links successfully. | |
| This switch is supported only by RAR 5.0 format. | |
| -oi[0-4][:<minsize>] | |
| Save identical files as references. | |
| Switch -oi0 (or just -oi-) turns off identical file processing, | |
| so such files are compressed as usual files. It can be used to | |
| override another -oi value stored in RAR configuration. | |
| If -oi1 (or just -oi) is specified, RAR analyzes the file | |
| contents before starting archiving. If several identical files | |
| are found, the first file in the set is saved as usual file | |
| and all following files are saved as references to this first | |
| file. It allows to reduce the archive size, but applies some | |
| restrictions to resulting archive. You must not delete or rename | |
| the first identical file in archive after the archive was | |
| created, because it will make extraction of following files | |
| using it as a reference impossible. If you modify the first file, | |
| following files will also have the modified contents | |
| after extracting. | |
| While typically it is possible to unpack a reference without | |
| unpacking the first file, in some cases it might be necessary | |
| to involve the first file into extraction to create following | |
| files successfully. Such cases include a multivolume archive | |
| stored on several removable media and archives containing | |
| a very large number of references. | |
| It is recommended to use -oi only if you compress a lot of | |
| identical files and will not modify an archive later. | |
| If all identical files are small enough to fit into | |
| compression dictionary specified with -md<n> switch, | |
| switch -s can provide more flexible solution than -oi. | |
| Switch -oi2 is similar to -oi1, with the only difference: | |
| it will display names of found identical files before starting | |
| archiving. | |
| Switches -oi3 and -oi4 allow to utilize RAR to generate | |
| lists of identical files. Though you still need to provide | |
| a dummy archive name to make the command syntax valid, | |
| in this mode an archive is not created and nothing is compressed. | |
| If -oi3 is used, file sizes and names are displayed | |
| and every identical file group is separated with empty line. | |
| Switch -oi4 displays bare file names and skips the first | |
| identical file in every file group, so only duplicates | |
| are listed. | |
| Optional <minsize> value allows to define the minimum file size | |
| threshold. Files smaller than <minsize> are not analyzed | |
| and not considered as identical. If this parameter is not | |
| present, it is assumed to be 64 KB by default. Selecting | |
| too small <minsize> may increase the time required to detect | |
| identical files. | |
| <minsize> can include an optional trailing unit type character. | |
| Unit type can be 'b' or 'B' for bytes, 'k' for kilobytes, | |
| 'K' for thousands of bytes, 'm' for megabytes, 'M' for millions | |
| of bytes, 'g' for gigabytes, 'G' for billions of bytes, | |
| 't' for terabytes, 'T' for trillions of bytes. If this character | |
| is not present, bytes are assumed. | |
| Examples: | |
| 1) rar a -oi archive | |
| Save the current directory contents to archive.rar. | |
| Store identical files as references. | |
| 2) rar a -oi3:1M -r dummy c:\photo\*.jpg | |
| List all duplicate *.jpg files larger than or equal to | |
| 1000000 bytes, found in c:\photo and its subdirectories. | |
| -ol[a,-] | |
| Process symbolic links as the link [absolute paths, skip]. | |
| Save symbolic links as links, so file or directory contents | |
| is not archived. In Windows version it also saves reparse points | |
| as links. Such archive entries are restored as symbolic links | |
| or reparse points when extracting. | |
| Supported in RAR versions for both Windows and Unix systems. | |
| In Windows you may need to run RAR as administrator to create | |
| symbolic links when extracting. | |
| RAR adds all links regardless of target when archiving with | |
| -ol switch. When extracting, to prevent placing files outside | |
| of destination directory RAR can skip symbolic links with | |
| absolute paths, the excessive number of ".." in link target | |
| or other potentially dangerous link parameters. Also it can | |
| convert some of links to directories. You can turn off these | |
| security checks and extract all links as is with -ola switch. | |
| Placing files outside of destination directory can present | |
| a security risk when extracting. Use -ola switch only if you | |
| are sure that archive contents is safe, such as your own backup. | |
| Links that are considered safe by RAR are extracted always | |
| regardless of -ol or -ola switch, unless -ol- is specified. | |
| Switch -ol- skips symbolic links when archiving or extracting. | |
| -om[-|1][=list] | |
| Propagate Mark of the Web. | |
| Internet browsers can add so called Mark of the Web to downloaded | |
| files. It is stored in Zone.Identifier NTFS alternate data stream | |
| and provides the information about file security zone, original | |
| location also as other optional fields. Various software can use | |
| it for security purposes. | |
| By default the console RAR doesn't copy contents the archive | |
| Mark of the Web to files extracted from this archive, | |
| but such archive Mark of the Web propagation can be enabled | |
| with this switch. | |
| If this switch is followed by '1', all Mark of the Web fields | |
| are copied from archive to extracted files. For -om without '1' | |
| only the security zone value is propagated. Information contained | |
| in other fields might be useful to identify a file source, | |
| but it can disclose the potentially confidential file download | |
| location, IP address and other sensitive information if file | |
| is shared with other persons. So the default behavior of this | |
| switch without '1' modifier is to omit all fields except | |
| the security zone value. | |
| Optional '-' parameter prohibits Mark of the Web propagation | |
| and can be used to override settings stored in rar.ini | |
| configuration file or RARINISWITCHES environment variable. | |
| Optional <list> parameter defines the list of file extensions | |
| separated by semicolons. For example, -om=doc;exe;bat will | |
| force RAR to propagate Mark of the Web only for *.doc, *.exe | |
| and *.bat files. It is also allowed to specify wildcard | |
| file masks in the list, so -om=*.doc;*.exe;*.bat will work too. | |
| If list is omitted, all extracted files are assumed. | |
| Switch -os can be used to preserve source files Mark of the Web | |
| when archiving, so it is restored when extracting. | |
| Examples: | |
| 1) rar x -om archive.rar | |
| propagate the archive Mark of the Web to all extracted files. | |
| Include security zone value only. | |
| 2) rar x -om1=doc;exe archive.rar | |
| propagate the archive Mark of the Web to *.doc and *.exe. | |
| Include all Mark of the Web fields. | |
| -oni Allow potentially incompatible names. | |
| While NTFS file system permits file names with trailing spaces | |
| and dots, also as reserved device names, a lot of Windows | |
| programs fail to process such names correctly. If this switch | |
| is not specified, RAR removes trailing spaces and dots, if any, | |
| from file names when extracting. It also inserts the underscore | |
| character in the beginning of reserved device names, such as aux. | |
| Specify this switch if you need to extract such names as is. | |
| It might be associated with compatibility or even security risks. | |
| Windows version only. | |
| -op<path> | |
| Set the output path. | |
| Specify the directory to place extracted files in 'x' and 'e' | |
| commands. This directory is created by RAR if it does not | |
| exist yet. | |
| Unlike <path_to_extract\> command line parameter, -op switch | |
| also accepts paths without trailing path separator character. | |
| Example: | |
| rar x -opdest archive | |
| unpacks contents of archive.rar to 'dest' directory. | |
| -or Rename extracted files automatically if file with the same name | |
| already exists. Renamed file will get the name like | |
| 'filename(N).txt', where 'filename.txt' is the original file | |
| name and 'N' is a number starting from 1 and incrementing | |
| if file exists. | |
| -os Save NTFS streams. Windows version only. | |
| This switch has meaning only for NTFS file system and allows | |
| to save alternate data streams associated with a file. | |
| You may need to specify it when archiving if you use software | |
| storing data in alternative streams and wish to preserve | |
| these streams. | |
| Streams are not saved for NTFS encrypted files. | |
| -ow Use this switch when archiving to save file security | |
| information and when extracting to restore it. | |
| RAR version for Unix systems saves file owner and group | |
| when using this switch. | |
| Windows version stores owner, group, file permissions and | |
| audit information, but only if you have necessary privileges | |
| to read them. Note that only NTFS file system supports | |
| file based security under Windows. | |
| -o[+|-] Set the overwrite mode. Can be used both when extracting | |
| and updating archived files. Following modes are available: | |
| -o Ask before overwrite | |
| (default for extracting files); | |
| -o+ Overwrite all | |
| (default for updating archived files); | |
| -o- Skip existing files. | |
| -p[pwd] Set password | |
| Set password <pwd> to encrypt files when archiving | |
| or to decrypt when extracting. | |
| Passwords are case-sensitive. Maximum password length is | |
| 127 characters. Longer passwords are truncated to this length. | |
| If you omit a password in command line, you will be prompted | |
| with "Enter password" message. You can also use file redirection | |
| or pipe to specify a password if <pwd> parameter is missing. | |
| Examples: | |
| 1) rar a -psecret texts.rar *.txt | |
| add files *.txt and encrypt them with password "secret". | |
| 2) rar -p texts.rar *.txt < psw.txt | |
| set contents of psw.txt file as a password. | |
| -qo[-|+] | |
| Add quick open information [none|force] | |
| RAR archives store every file header containing information | |
| such as file name, time, size and attributes immediately | |
| before data of described file. This approach is more damage | |
| resistant than storing all file headers in a single continuous | |
| block, which if broken or truncated would destroy the entire | |
| archive contents. But while being more reliable, such file | |
| headers scattered around the entire archive are slower to | |
| access if we need to quickly open the archive contents | |
| in a shell like WinRAR graphical interface. | |
| To improve archive open speed and still not make the entire | |
| archive dependent on a single damaged block, RAR 5.0 archives | |
| can include an optional quick open record. Such record is | |
| added to the end of archive and contains copies of file names | |
| and other file information stored in a single continuous block | |
| additionally to normal file headers inside of archive. | |
| Since the block is continuous, its contents can be read quickly, | |
| without necessity to perform a lot of disk seek operations. | |
| Every file header in this block is protected with a checksum. | |
| If RAR detects that quick open information is damaged, | |
| it resorts to reading individual headers from inside of archive, | |
| so damage resistance is not lessened. | |
| Quick open record contains the full copy of file header, | |
| which may be several tens or hundreds of bytes per file, | |
| increasing the archive size by the same amount. This size | |
| increase is most noticeable for many small files, when file | |
| data size is comparable to file header. So by default, | |
| if no -qo is specified or -qo without parameter is used, | |
| RAR stores copies of headers only for relatively large files | |
| and continues to use local headers for smaller files. | |
| Concrete file size threshold can depend on RAR version. | |
| Such approach provides a reasonable open speed to archive size | |
| tradeoff. If you prefer to have the maximum archive open speed | |
| regardless of size, you can use -qo+ to store copies of all | |
| file headers. If you need to have the smallest possible archive | |
| and do not care about archive open speed in different programs, | |
| specify -qo- to exclude the quick open information completely. | |
| Switch -qo- also prohibits access to quick open information | |
| in existing archives, such as when extracting or listing | |
| their contents. | |
| If you wish to measure the performance effect of this switch, | |
| be sure that archive contents is not stored in a disk cache. | |
| No real disk seeks are performed for cached archive file, | |
| making access to file headers fast even without quick open | |
| record. | |
| -r Recurse subdirectories. May be used with commands: | |
| a, u, f, m, x, e, t, p, v, l, c, cf and s. | |
| When used with the commands 'a', 'u', 'f', 'm' will process | |
| files in all sub-directories as well as the current working | |
| directory. | |
| When used with the commands x, e, t, p, v, l, c, cf or s will | |
| process all archives in sub-directories as well as the current | |
| working directory. | |
| -r- Disable recursion. | |
| Even without -r switch RAR can enable the recursion | |
| automatically in some situations. Switch -r- prohibits it. | |
| If you specify a directory name when archiving and if such | |
| name does not include wildcards, by default RAR adds | |
| the directory contents even if switch -r is not specified. | |
| Also RAR automatically enables the recursion if disk root | |
| without wildcards is specified as a file mask. Switch -r- | |
| disables such behavior. | |
| For example: | |
| rar a -r- arc dirname | |
| command will add only the empty 'dirname' directory and ignore | |
| its contents. Following command: | |
| rar a -r- arc c:\ | |
| will compress contents of root c: directory only and | |
| will not recurse into subdirectories. | |
| -r0 Similar to -r, but when used with the commands 'a', 'u', 'f', | |
| 'm' will recurse into subdirectories only for those file masks, | |
| which include wildcard characters '*' and '?'. | |
| This switch works only for file names. Directory names without | |
| a file name part, such as 'dirname', are not affected by -r0 | |
| and their contents is added to archive completely unless -r- | |
| switch is specified. | |
| Example: | |
| rar a -r0 docs.rar *.doc readme.txt | |
| add *.doc files from the current directory and its subdirectories | |
| and readme.txt only from the current directory to docs.rar | |
| archive. In case of usual -r switch, RAR would search for | |
| readme.txt in subdirectories too. | |
| -ri<p>[:<s>] | |
| Set priority and sleep time. Available only in RAR for Windows. | |
| This switch regulates system load by RAR in multitasking | |
| environment. Possible task priority <p> values are 0 - 15. | |
| If <p> is 0, RAR uses the default task priority. | |
| <p> equal to 1 sets the lowest possible priority, | |
| 15 - the highest possible. | |
| Sleep time <s> is a value from 0 to 1000 (milliseconds). | |
| This is a period of time that RAR gives back to the system | |
| after read or write operations while compressing or extracting. | |
| Non-zero <s> may be useful if you need to reduce system load | |
| even more than can be achieved with <p> parameter. | |
| Example: | |
| execute RAR with default priority and 10 ms sleep time: | |
| rar a -ri0:10 backup *.* | |
| -rr[N] Add the data recovery record. This switch is used when creating | |
| or modifying an archive to add the data recovery record to | |
| archive. See 'rr[N]' command description for details. | |
| -rv[N] Create recovery volumes. This switch is used when creating | |
| a multivolume archive to generate recovery volumes. | |
| See the 'rv[N]' command description for details. | |
| -s[=<par>] | |
| Create solid archive. Solid archive is an archive packed by | |
| a special compression method, which treats several or all | |
| files within the archive as one continuous data stream. | |
| Solid archiving significantly increases compression, when | |
| adding a large number of small, similar files. But it also | |
| has a few important disadvantages: slower updating of existing | |
| solid archives, slower access to individual files, lower | |
| damage resistance. | |
| Usually files in a solid archive are sorted by extension. | |
| But it is possible to disable sorting with -ds switch or set | |
| an alternative file order using a special file, rarfiles.lst. | |
| This switch can include one or more optional modifiers after '=' | |
| character. Most of these modifiers control the solid statistics | |
| reset inside of archive, overriding the continuous solid stream | |
| mode of plain -s switch. Resetting the statistics typically | |
| leads to lower compression, faster access to individual files, | |
| stored after reset, and higher chances to extract such files | |
| if archive was broken. Here are switches with possible modifiers. | |
| -s=- Disable solid archiving. It allows to override -s in rar.ini | |
| configuration file or RARINISWITCHES environment variable. | |
| -s=d Do not reset the solid statistics between volumes. | |
| -s=v Always reset the solid statistics between volumes. | |
| By default RAR resets the solid statistics at the first new file | |
| in a new volume, provided that enough data was packed since | |
| the previous reset. This switch resets it regardless of data size. | |
| -s=e Reset the solid statistics if file extension is changed. | |
| -s=<N>f Reset the solid statistics after adding every N files. | |
| -s=<N><k|m|g> Reset the solid statistics after packing every | |
| data block of specified size in KB, MB or GB, such as -s=100m. | |
| -s=r Reset the solid statistics before adding new files | |
| to existing archive. | |
| It is allowed to combine multiple modifiers in the same switch, | |
| such as -s=e100f. | |
| Example: | |
| add all *.c and *.h files from the current directory to | |
| the solid archive sources.rar: | |
| rar a -s sources.rar *.c *.h | |
| -sc<charset>[objects] | |
| Specify the character set. | |
| 'Charset' parameter is mandatory and can have one | |
| of the following values: | |
| U - Unicode UTF-16; | |
| F - Unicode UTF-8; | |
| A - the native single byte encoding, which is ANSI | |
| for Windows version; | |
| O - OEM (DOS) encoding. Windows version only. | |
| Endianness of source UTF-16 files, such as list files | |
| or comments, is detected based on the byte order mark. | |
| If byte order mask is missing, little endian encoding is assumed. | |
| 'Objects' parameter is optional and can have one of | |
| the following values: | |
| G - log files produced by -ilog switch; | |
| L - list files; | |
| C - comment files; | |
| R - messages sent to redirected files and pipes (Windows only). | |
| It is allowed to specify more than one object, for example, | |
| -scolc. If 'objects' parameter is missing, 'charset' is applied | |
| to all objects. | |
| This switch allows to specify the character set for files | |
| in -z[file] switch, list files and comment files written by | |
| "cw" command. | |
| Examples: | |
| 1) rar a -scol data @list | |
| Read names contained in 'list' using OEM encoding. | |
| 2) rar c -scuc -zcomment.txt data | |
| Read comment.txt as Unicode file. | |
| 3) rar cw -scuc data comment.txt | |
| Write comment.txt as Unicode file. | |
| 4) rar lb -scur data > list.txt | |
| Save archived file names in data.rar to list.txt in Unicode. | |
| -sfx[name] | |
| Create SFX archives. If this switch is used when creating a new | |
| archive, a Self-Extracting archive (using a module in file | |
| default.sfx or specified in the switch) would be created. | |
| In Windows version default.sfx should be placed in the same | |
| directory as the rar.exe, in Unix systems - in the user's home | |
| directory, in /usr/lib or /usr/local/lib. | |
| Windows version uses default32.sfx name for 32-bit SFX module. | |
| Example: | |
| rar a -sfxwincon.sfx myinst | |
| create SelF-eXtracting (SFX) archive using wincon.sfx | |
| SFX-module. | |
| -si[name] | |
| Read data from stdin (standard input), when creating, extracting | |
| or testing an archive. | |
| When archiving, the optional 'name' parameter allows to specify | |
| a file name of compressed stdin data in the created archive. | |
| If this parameter is missing, the name will be set to 'stdin'. | |
| When extracting, the archive name specified in the command line | |
| is used only in informational messages, but actual archive data | |
| is read from stdin. So any dummy archive name can be applied. | |
| RAR cannot perform operations requiring backward seeks | |
| when reading archive data from stdin. Incomplete list of | |
| features unavailable in such mode includes displaying archive | |
| comments, testing the recovery record, utilizing the quick open | |
| information, processing multivolume archives. | |
| Any prompts requiring user interaction are not allowed with | |
| -si and lead to program termination. If overwriting existing | |
| files or unpacking encrypted files is possible, avoid such | |
| prompts with -o[+|-|r], -p<pwd> or -mes switches. | |
| Examples: | |
| 1) compress 'type readme.txt' output as 'readme.rar' file | |
| type readme.txt | rar a -sireadme.txt readme.rar | |
| 2) unpack docs.rar to 'docs' directory | |
| type docs.rar | rar x -si -o+ -pmypwd dummy docs\ | |
| -sl<size>[b|B|k|K|m|M|g|G|t|T] | |
| Process only those files, which size is less than | |
| specified in <size> parameter of this switch. | |
| Unit type character following the size value can be 'b' or 'B' | |
| for bytes, 'k' for kilobytes, 'K' for thousands of bytes, | |
| 'm' for megabytes, 'M' for millions of bytes, 'g' for gigabytes, | |
| 'G' for billions of bytes, 't' for terabytes, 'T' for trillions | |
| of bytes. If this character is not present, bytes are assumed. | |
| -sm<size>[b|B|k|K|m|M|g|G|t|T] | |
| Process only those files, which size is more than | |
| specified in <size> parameter of this switch. | |
| Unit type character following the size value can be 'b' or 'B' | |
| for bytes, 'k' for kilobytes, 'K' for thousands of bytes, | |
| 'm' for megabytes, 'M' for millions of bytes, 'g' for gigabytes, | |
| 'G' for billions of bytes, 't' for terabytes, 'T' for trillions | |
| of bytes. If this character is not present, bytes are assumed. | |
| -t Test files after archiving. This switch is especially | |
| useful in combination with the move command, so files will be | |
| deleted only if the archive had been successfully tested. | |
| -ta[m,c,a,o]<date> | |
| Process only files modified after the specified date. | |
| Files matching the specified date exactly are also included. | |
| Format of the date string is YYYYMMDDHHMMSS. It is allowed to | |
| insert separators like '-' or ':' to the date string and omit | |
| trailing fields. For example, switch -ta2001-11-20 is correct. | |
| Internally it will be expanded to -ta20011120000000 and treated | |
| as "files modified after 0 hour 0 minutes 0 seconds | |
| on 20 November 2001". | |
| Use 'm', 'c', 'a' modifiers to specify modification, | |
| creation (ctime in Unix systems) and last access time accordingly, | |
| such as -tac20011120 for creation time or ctime. | |
| If such modifier is omitted, the modification time is assumed. | |
| It is allowed to use several modifiers in the same switch, | |
| such as -tamc20190215, to set the same date for all specified | |
| times. Alternatively you can add several time filtering | |
| switches to command line. By default, time filters use AND logic, | |
| so a file must match all such filters to be processed. | |
| It can be changed to OR logic with 'o' modifier, so a file will | |
| have to match at least one 'o' filter. For example, use | |
| -taco20190201 -tamo20190210 to include files created after | |
| 2019-02-01 or modified after 2019-02-10. | |
| -tb[m,c,a,o]<date> | |
| Process only files modified before the specified date. | |
| Files matching the specified date exactly are not included. | |
| Format of the switch is the same as -ta<date>. | |
| -tk[<date>] | |
| Keep the original or set the specified archive time. | |
| If used without parameter, prevents RAR from modifying | |
| the archive time when changing an archive. | |
| Optional date parameter in YYYYMMDDHHMMSS format specifies | |
| the date to assign to archive modification time. It is allowed | |
| to insert separators like '-' or ':' to the date string | |
| and omit trailing fields. For example, switch -tk2025-06-01 | |
| is correct. | |
| -tl Set archive time to newest file. Forces RAR to set the time of | |
| changed archive to the date of the newest file in the archive. | |
| -tn[m,c,a,o]<time> | |
| Process files newer than the specified time period. | |
| Files matching the specified time period exactly are also included. | |
| Format of the time string is: | |
| [<ndays>d][<nhours>h][<nminutes>m][<nseconds>s] | |
| For example, use switch -tn15d to process files newer | |
| than 15 days and -tn2h30m to process files newer than | |
| 2 hours 30 minutes. | |
| Use 'm', 'c', 'a' modifiers to specify modification, | |
| creation (ctime in Unix systems) and last access time accordingly, | |
| such as -tnc2h30m for creation time or ctime. | |
| If such modifier is omitted, the modification time is assumed. | |
| It is allowed to use several modifiers in the same switch, | |
| such as -tnmc30d, to set the same period for all specified times. | |
| Alternatively you can add several time filtering switches to | |
| command line. By default, time filters use AND logic, | |
| so a file must match all such filters to be processed. | |
| It can be changed to OR logic with 'o' modifier, so a file | |
| will have to match at least one 'o' filter. For example, | |
| use -tnco30d -tnmo20d to include files with creation time | |
| newer than 30 days or modification time newer than 20 days. | |
| -to[m,c,a,o]<time> | |
| Process files older than the specified time period. | |
| Files matching the specified time period exactly are not included. | |
| Format of the switch is the same as -tn<time>. | |
| -ts[m,c,a,p][+,-,1] | |
| Save or restore file time (modification, creation or ctime, | |
| access, preserve). | |
| Use -tsm to save the file modification time. Switch -tsc saves | |
| the creation time in Windows and the change time, also known | |
| as ctime, in Unix systems. Switch -tsa saves the last access time. | |
| Multiple -ts switches, such as -tsc -tsa, are allowed. | |
| If 'm', 'c' or 'a' are not specified, all three file times | |
| are assumed. | |
| Append '+' to store a file time with maximum possible precision. | |
| The exact value depends on the particular operating system | |
| also as the file system and can be up to 100 nanoseconds | |
| in Windows and 1 nanosecond in Unix systems. Append '1' to set | |
| 1 second precision or '-' to not save a file time, such as -ts- | |
| to omit all 3 times. If '+', '-' or '1' are not present, | |
| '+' is assumed, so -ts+ and -ts both save all three high | |
| precision times. | |
| All stored times for same file always have the same precision. | |
| If different precisions are specified, such as -tsm1 -tsc+, | |
| common one is selected. | |
| If -ts switch is not specified, RAR stores the high precision | |
| modification time and omits two other times. | |
| By default RAR sets only the modification time for extracted files, | |
| even if archive contains other times. Use -ts or -ts+ when | |
| unpacking to set all three times, -tsc and -tsa to set | |
| creation (ctime in Unix systems) and last access times, | |
| -tsm- or -ts- to set the current system time instead of | |
| modification time stored in archive. | |
| Windows allows to set all three file times when unpacking. | |
| In Unix systems we can set the modification and last access, | |
| but not the change time. | |
| Use -tsp switch to preserve the original last access file time | |
| of source files when archiving. This switch attempts to keep | |
| the original last access time of archiving files, but it does not | |
| control, which timestamps are to be stored in archive. | |
| It has to be combined with other -ts switches for this purpose. | |
| For example, if we wish to save the last access time to archive | |
| and preserve the last access time of source files, we need | |
| to use -tsa -tsp together. To open some files with -tsp switch, | |
| it may be necessary to run RAR as administrator. | |
| While -tsp is supported by RAR for Windows, it is not guaranteed | |
| to work for other platforms. | |
| It is allowed to combine several modifiers in the same switch, | |
| such as -tscap instead of -tsc -tsa -tsp. | |
| Examples: | |
| 1) rar a -ts backup | |
| Store all file times with the highest possible precision. | |
| 2) rar x -tsa backup | |
| Restore modification and last access time. Switch -tsm is not | |
| required, because RAR sets the modification time by default. | |
| If we wish to restore only the last access time, we should use | |
| -tsm- -tsa switches. | |
| 3) rar a -tsm1 -tsc1 -tsp backup | |
| Store low precision modification and creation or ctime times. | |
| Preserve the last access time of source files. | |
| Alternatively we could use -tsm1c1p instead of -tsm1 -tsc1 -tsp. | |
| -u Update files. May be used with archive extraction or creation. | |
| The command string "a -u" is equivalent to the command 'u', you | |
| could also use the switch '-u' with the commands 'm' or 'mf'. If | |
| the switch '-u' is used with the commands 'x' or 'e', then files | |
| not present on the disk and files newer than their copies on the | |
| disk would extracted from the archive. | |
| -v Create volumes with size autodetection or list all volumes | |
| This switch may be used when creating or listing volumes. | |
| In the first case it enables volume size autodetection, | |
| so new volumes will use all available space on the destination | |
| media. It is convenient when creating volumes on removable | |
| disks. You may read more about volumes in -v<size> description. | |
| In the second case, when this switch is used together with | |
| 'V' or 'L' command, it forces RAR to list contents of all | |
| volumes starting from that specified in the command line. | |
| Without this switch RAR displays contents of only one single | |
| specified volume. | |
| -v<size>[b|B|k|K|m|M|g|G|t|T] | |
| Create volumes of the specified size. | |
| Unit type character following the size value can be 'b' or 'B' | |
| for bytes, 'k' for kilobytes, 'K' for thousands of bytes, | |
| 'm' for megabytes, 'M' for millions of bytes, 'g' for gigabytes, | |
| 'G' for billions of bytes, 't' for terabytes, 'T' for trillions | |
| of bytes. If this character is not present, the size value | |
| is treated as thousands of bytes | |
| If the size is omitted, autodetection will be used. | |
| It is allowed to enter decimal fractions using the dot as | |
| the decimal mark. For example, -v1.5g means 1.5 gigabytes. | |
| You may specify several -v switches to set different sizes | |
| for different volumes. For example: | |
| rar a -v100k -v200k -v300k arcname | |
| sets 100 KB size for first volume, 200 KB for second | |
| and 300 KB for all following volumes. | |
| If volumes are created on removable media, then after | |
| the creation of the first volume, the user will be prompted | |
| with: | |
| Create next volume: Yes/No/All | |
| At this moment in time, you should change the disks. Answering | |
| 'A' will cause all volumes to be created without a pause. | |
| RAR volumes have names like 'volname.partNNN.rar', where NNN | |
| is the volume number. | |
| Volumes created by older RAR versions could use the another naming | |
| scheme, where the first volume file in a multi-volume set had | |
| .rar extension, followed by volumes with extensions from .r00 to | |
| .r99. RAR can unpack such volumes, but doesn't use the extension | |
| based names for new archives. | |
| When extracting or testing a multi-volume archive you must use | |
| only the first volume name. If there is no next volume | |
| on the drive and the disk is removable, the user will be | |
| prompted with: | |
| Insert disk with <next volume name> | |
| Insert the disk with the correct volume and press any key. | |
| If while extracting, the next volume is not found and volumes | |
| are placed on the non-removable disk, RAR will abort with | |
| the error message: | |
| Cannot find <volume name> | |
| Archive volumes cannot be modified. The commands 'd', 'f', 'u', | |
| 's' cannot be used with Multi-volume sets. The command 'a' may | |
| be used only for the creation of a new multi-volume sequence. | |
| It is possible, although unlikely, that the file size, of a file | |
| in a multi-volume set, could be greater than its uncompressed | |
| size. This is due to the fact that 'storing' (no compression if | |
| size increases) cannot be enabled for multi-volume sets. | |
| Archive volumes may be Self-Extracting (SFX). Such an archive | |
| should be created using both the '-v' and '-sfx' switches. | |
| Example: | |
| create solid volumes 1 GB each: | |
| rar a -s -v1g volume.rar bitmaps | |
| -vd Erase disk contents before creating volume | |
| All files and directories on the target disk will be erased | |
| when '-vd' is used. The switch applies only to removable | |
| media, the hard disk cannot be erased using this switch. | |
| -ver[n] File version control | |
| Forces RAR to keep previous file versions when updating | |
| files in the already existing archive. Old versions are | |
| renamed to 'filename;n', where 'n' is the version number. | |
| By default, when unpacking an archive without the switch | |
| -ver, RAR extracts only the last added file version, the name | |
| of which does not include a numeric suffix. But if you specify | |
| a file name exactly, including a version, it will be also | |
| unpacked. For example, 'rar x arcname' will unpack only | |
| last versions, when 'rar x arcname file.txt;5' will unpack | |
| 'file.txt;5', if it is present in the archive. | |
| If you specify -ver switch without a parameter when unpacking, | |
| RAR will extract all versions of all files that match | |
| the entered file mask. In this case a version number is | |
| not removed from unpacked file names. You may also extract | |
| a concrete file version specifying its number as -ver parameter. | |
| It will tell RAR to unpack only this version and remove | |
| a version number from file names. For example, | |
| 'rar x -ver5 arcname' will unpack only 5th file versions. | |
| If you specify 'n' parameter when archiving, it will limit | |
| the maximum number of file versions stored in the archive. | |
| Old file versions exceeding this threshold will be removed. | |
| When archiving with -ver switch, it is recommended to avoid | |
| names in 'filename;n' format among files to add. Such names | |
| can lead to duplicate entries if old version with same name | |
| either is present in archive or will be created later. | |
| -vp Pause before each volume | |
| By default RAR asks for confirmation before processing | |
| next volume only when archiving to removable disks and only | |
| if free disk space is less than volume size. This switch | |
| forces RAR to always ask for such confirmation when creating | |
| or extracting volumes. For example, it can be useful if you | |
| wish to copy new volumes to another media immediately after | |
| creating. | |
| -w<p> Assign work directory to <p>. | |
| RAR creates temporary files in some operations like archive | |
| modification. This switch can be used to specify the directory | |
| for such temporary files. This directory must already exist. | |
| Example: | |
| use d:\tmp directory for temporary files when adding a new | |
| comment to info.rar | |
| RAR c -wd:\tmp -zcomment.txt info.rar | |
| -x<f> Exclude the specified <f> file or directory. Wildcards can be | |
| used in both the name and path parts of file mask. You can | |
| specify the switch '-x' several times to define several | |
| exclusion masks in the same command line. | |
| If mask contains wildcards, it applies to files in current | |
| directory and its subdirectories. It is not recursive without | |
| wildcards, so "filename" mask will exclude 'filename' file | |
| only in current directory when archiving or in root archive | |
| directory when extracting. | |
| Use "*\filename" syntax to exclude "filename" recursively | |
| in all directories. | |
| If you know the exact path to file, you can use "path\filename" | |
| syntax to exclude only this copy of "filename". If you use | |
| -xpath\filename syntax when unpacking an archive, "path" must be | |
| the path inside of archive, not the file path on the disk after | |
| unpacking. | |
| By default, masks containing wildcards are applied only to files. | |
| If you need a mask with wildcards to exclude several directories, | |
| use the special syntax for directory exclusion masks. | |
| Such masks must have the trailing path separator character | |
| ('\' for Windows and '/' for Unix systems). For example, "*tmp*\" | |
| mask will exclude all directories matching "*tmp*" and "*\tmp\" | |
| will exclude all 'tmp' directories. Since wildcards are present, | |
| both masks will be applied to contents of current directory | |
| and all its subdirectories. | |
| If you wish to exclude only one directory, specify the exact | |
| name of directory including the absolute or relative path | |
| without any wildcards. In this case you do not need to append | |
| the path separator to mask, which is required only for directory | |
| exclusion masks containing wildcards to distinguish them | |
| from file exclusion masks. | |
| Examples: | |
| 1) rar a -r -x*.jpg -x*.avi rawfiles | |
| compress all files except *.jpg and *.avi in current directory | |
| and its subdirectories; | |
| 2) rar a -r -x*\temp\ savec c:\* | |
| compress all files on the disk c: except 'temp' directories | |
| and files inside of 'temp' directories; | |
| 3) rar x -x*.txt docs | |
| extract all files except *.txt from docs.rar. | |
| -x@<lf> Exclude files listed in the specified list file. If you use -x@ | |
| without the list file name parameter, it will read file names | |
| from stdin. | |
| Example: | |
| rar a -x@exlist.txt arch *.exe | |
| -y Assume Yes on all queries. | |
| -z[file] | |
| Read archive comment from file <file>. | |
| This switch can be used with any archive modification command | |
| to read the archive comment from file and add it to archive. | |
| Use with -sc switch if you need to specify the character set | |
| for comment text file. If <file> is not present, comment | |
| is read from stdin. | |
| Limitations | |
| ~~~~~~~~~~~ | |
| Command limitations: | |
| Commands 'd','u','f','c','cf' will not operate with archive volumes. | |
| Command 'a' cannot be used to update an archive volume, only to | |
| create a new one. | |
| Exit values | |
| ~~~~~~~~~~~ | |
| RAR exits with a zero code (0) in case of successful operation. | |
| Non-zero exit code indicates some kind of error: | |
| Code Description | |
| 0 Successful operation. | |
| 1 Non fatal error(s) occurred. | |
| 2 A fatal error occurred. | |
| 3 Invalid checksum. Data is damaged. | |
| 4 Attempt to modify an archive locked by 'k' command. | |
| 5 Write error. | |
| 6 File open error. | |
| 7 Wrong command line option. | |
| 8 Not enough memory. | |
| 9 File create error | |
| 10 No files matching the specified mask and options were found. | |
| 11 Wrong password. | |
| 12 Read error. | |
| 13 Bad archive. | |
| 255 User stopped the process. | |
| Glossary | |
| ~~~~~~~~ | |
| Archive Special file containing one or more files optionally | |
| compressed and/or encrypted. | |
| Compression A method of encoding data to reduce it's size. | |
| Checksum Value calculating for data block or file and allowing to | |
| check data or file validity. | |
| SFX archive SelF-eXtracting archive. Archive in executable format, | |
| consisting of self-extracting module followed by | |
| compressed data. It is enough to run such executable to | |
| start extraction. | |
| Solid An archive packed using a special compression method which | |
| sees all files as one continuous data stream. Particularly | |
| advantageous when packing a large number of small files. | |
| Volume Part of a split archive. Splitting an archive to volumes | |
| allows storing them on several removable disks. | |
| Solid volumes must be extracted starting from first | |
| volume in sequence. | |
| Copyrights | |
| (c) 1993-2026 Alexander Roshal | |