WinRAR Changelog

What's new in WinRAR 7.00

Feb 28, 2024
  • Compression dictionary sizes larger than 1 GB are supported for RAR archive format. Depending on the amount of physically available memory, dictionary up to 64 GB can be selected.
  • Not power of 2 dictionary sizes can be specified for dictionaries exceeding 4 GB. So we are not limited to 4, 8, 16, 32, 64 series and can use values like 5 GB or 22 GB.
  • Archives with dictionaries exceeding 4 GB can be unpacked only by WinRAR 7.0 or newer. 64-bit WinRAR version is needed to unpack archives with dictionaries exceeding 1 GB.
  • WinRAR issues a prompt allowing to cancel or continue if dictionary size in extracted RAR archive exceeds "Maximum dictionary size allowed to extract" parameter in "Settings/Compression". It is done to prevent the unexpected excessive memory allocation.
  • In the command line mode by default WinRAR refuses to unpack archives with dictionary exceeding 4 GB. Use -md or -mdx to allow unpacking dictionaries up to and including the specified size. Unlike -md, -mdx is applied to extraction only and can be added to RAR environment variable, not affecting archiving commands.
  • "Define dictionary sizes" dialog in "Settings/Compression" can be used to customize dictionary sizes proposed in the drop down list associated with "Dictionary size" field in "Archive name and parameters" dialog.
  • Alternate search algorithm, optimized to locate longer and more distant repeated data blocks, can be used when creating RAR archives. It helps to improve the compression ratio and sometimes speed for redundant data like big text files.
  • It increases memory usage and might reduce the compression speed for some types of data. It can be turned on or off with "Long range search" options in "Advanced compression parameters" dialog or with -mcl[+|-] switch. If "Auto" option is selected, WinRAR applies the long range search depending on the compression method, dictionary size and other parameters.
  • This algorithm is required for dictionaries exceeding 4 GB and turning it off is ignored for such dictionaries.
  • Much slower and more exhaustive repeated data search and compression algorithm can be enabled with "Exhaustive search" option in "Advanced compression parameters" dialog or with -mcx switch. It might provide the additional compression gain for some types of redundant data, but at much lower compression speed.
  • Long range search is needed to implement this mode efficiently, so the exhaustive search option activates it automatically.
  • Both long range and exhaustive search option do not affect the compatibility of created archives. So if dictionary size is in 128 KB - 4 GB range, archives created with these search options can be unpacked by all WinRAR versions beginning from 5.0.
  • Maximum path length limit is increased from 2047 to 65535 characters.
  • Creating archives in RAR 4.x format isn't supported anymore. Options and switches specific for this format are removed. It doesn't affect RAR 4.x archives decompression, which is included into WinRAR.
  • "Propagate Mark of the Web" option in "Settings/Security" dialog controls assigning the archive Mark of the Web to extracted files. It is possible to prohibit propagating, allow it for several predefined file groups, for all files or for files matching user defined file masks.
  • Mark of the Web is the security zone information added by Internet browsers to downloaded files. It can be used by various software for security purposes.
  • It is supported only by GUI WinRAR. Console RAR doesn't propagate Mark of the Web regardless of this option.
  • "Attributes" column can be enabled in "Settings/File list/Columns". It displays file attribute abbreviations, such as 'A' for "Archive" and 'D' for directory.
  • If file attribute isn't among those recognized by WinRAR, the numeric value of file attributes is also displayed. This value uses hexadecimal format for Windows attributes or octal format for Unix attributes.
  • "Benchmark" command allows to specify the exact number of threads and copy results to clipboard. Information about WinRAR and Windows versions, CPU and memory is added to benchmark window.
  • "Remove redundant folders from extraction path" option in "Settings/Paths" is now applicable also to extraction commands invoked from WinRAR user interface and to multiple archivesunpacked to separate folders. It removes a destination path component, only if its name matches both the archive name and root archived folder name, provided that there are no other folders or files in archive root.
  • For example, it will remove one of "Pictures" in the destination path if we unpack Pictures.rar containing the root "Pictures" folder to "Pictures" destination.
  • Previously it worked only for a single archive extracted from context menu and didn't check if archived folder name matches the last destination path component.
  • "Word wrap in comment" option in "Interface" options group in "Settings/General" toggles the word wrap mode in archive comment window.
  • Dictionary size data in archive information dialog is now available for .bz2, .lz, .tar.bz2, .tar.gz, .tar.lz, .tar.zst archives.
  • Switch -ol- prohibits archiving and extracting symbolic links.
  • Switches -sl[u] and -sm[u] recognize [k|K|m|M|g|G|t|T] size units for kilobytes, thousands of bytes, megabytes, millions of bytes, gigabytes, billions of bytes, terabytes, trillions of bytes. If unit character is 'b', 'B' or not present, bytes are assumed.
  • Previously these switches accepted bytes only.
  • SFX TempMode command accepts the optional @set:user parameter allowing to modify temporary folder permissions, so only the current user can access it. It prohibits a local user to replace files in a temporary folder if SFX is started under another account.
  • It also can be enabled with "Restrict folder access" option in "Advanced SFX options/Modes" dialog. Some installers might fail to start in a folder created with @set:user parameter.
  • File permissions and NTFS alternate streams are not saved for hard link entries. They are saved only for the source file these entries refer to. It allows to reduce the archive size, because such file properties are automatically propagated to hard links copies when extracting.
  • Keyboard shortcuts, such as Ctrl+A to select all files or Alt+E to unpack found archives, are now functional in "Search results" window also while search is still in progress. Previously they were available only after completing search.
  • Switch -v[unit] recognizes 't' and 'T' as terabytes and trillions of bytes for volume size units.
  • Warning is issued if leading '-' character is missing in a parameter specified in "Additional switches" field of WinRAR archiving and extraction dialogs. Also it is issued for parameters lacking '-' in RAR environment variable and rar.ini file. Previously such malformed parameters were ignored silently.
  • "Convert archives" command displays the smooth total operation progress. Previously the total progress was updated abruptly after converting an archive and was visible only when processing multiple archives.
  • Proper progress is displayed when compressing symbolic link targets.
  • "Integrate WinRAR into shell" option in WinRAR "Settings/Integration" is grayed out if "GlobalIntegration=0" is present in winrar.ini file.
  • 64-bit WinRAR version uses 64-bit SFX modules by default. 64-bit SFX modules are needed to unpack archives with dictionaries exceeding 1 GB.
  • 32-bit modules are renamed to Default32.SFX, Zip32.SFX, WinCon32.SFX.
  • Maximum allowed dictionary size for archiving and extraction can be specified in gigabytes in MaxDictA and MaxDictE variables in "HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareWinRARPolicy" Registry key. If these variables are smaller than corresponding values defined in WinRAR interface, they override interface values.
  • Console RAR filters out character 27 from screen output. It is done for security reasons, because this character can be used to declare ANSI escape control sequences in some terminal applications.
  • We are thankful to Siddharth Dushantha for bringing this issue to our attention.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • It was possible to overwrite Mark of the Web, propagated from archive to extracted files, and modify its security zone information utilizing a specially crafted .rar archive. We are thankful to Orange Tsai and NiNi from DEVCORE Research Team working with Trend Micro Zero Day Initiative for letting us know about this security issue.
  • Unlike WinRAR, unrar.dll library doesn't propagate the archive Mark of the Web and leaves it to a caller application to assign it to extracted files. So unrar.dll isn't affected by this issue;
  • "User defined archive extensions" field in "Settings/Integration" was not saved if winrar.ini was used to store settings and WinRAR was started under non-administrator user account.

New in WinRAR 7.00 Beta 4 (Jan 24, 2024)

  • Bugs fixed:
  • Fixed a crash in "Exhaustive search" archiving mode;
  • Timestamps of files extracted from UDF .iso archives didn't include the time zone offset;
  • Command "WinRAR x arcname.rar " placed extracted files to current folder instead of disk root.

New in WinRAR 7.00 Beta 3 (Dec 13, 2023)

  • Faster CRC32 checksum calculation improves extraction and archiving
  • performance for archives utilizing this type of checksum.
  • Speed improvement can be noticeable when extracting large files,
  • especially files saved in "Store" mode without compression.
  • "What's new" and "Run WinRAR" buttons are added to window
  • completing WinRAR installation.
  • "Archive comment:" string is displayed before the archive comment
  • in the console RAR.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • a) information about the total number of files and folders
  • in WinRAR status bar always displayed 1 folder;
  • b) "Checksum" column wasn't displayed until turning it off
  • and then on in column settings.

New in WinRAR 7.00 Beta 2 (Nov 23, 2023)

  • 64-bit WinRAR version uses 64-bit SFX modules by default. 64-bit SFX modules are needed to unpack archives with dictionaries exceeding 1 GB.
  • 32-bit modules are renamed to Default32.SFX, Zip32.SFX, WinCon32.SFX.
  • Maximum allowed dictionary size for archiving and extraction can be specified in gigabytes in MaxDictA and MaxDictE variables in "HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareWinRARPolicy" Registry key. If these variables are smaller than corresponding values defined in WinRAR interface, they override interface values.
  • Console RAR filters out character 27 from screen output. It is done for security reasons, because this character can be used to declare ANSI escape control sequences in some terminal applications.
  • "Remove" option is added to "Original archive name and time" list on "Options" page of "Info" dialog. Unlike "Do not save", it removes the archive information even if no other options in this dialog are modified.
  • It is possible to enable "Packed" column in WinRAR file list also outside of archives to see NTFS compressed file size.
  • "Benchmark" command:
  • Wider text area allows to fit longer system information strings;
  • "Copy to clipboard" buttom copies both text and window screenshot.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • Invalid names could be displayed for files inside of LZH archives;
  • Archiving dialog opened from Windows 11 context menu could be unexpectedly closed soon after opening;
  • Asterisk character wasn't displayed after encrypted archived files in WinRAR file list;
  • Value displayed as the dictionary size in archive properties in Windows Explorer could be either by 1024 larger than actual dictionary size or missing completely;
  • '+' character from "Generate archive name by mask" string was included into resulting archie name;
  • Environment variables were not expanded in command parameters inside of SFX archive script.

New in WinRAR 7.00 Beta 1 (Oct 23, 2023)

  • Compression dictionary sizes larger than 1 GB are supported for RAR archive format. Depending on the amount of physically available memory, dictionary up to 64 GB can be selected. Not power of 2 dictionary sizes can be specified for dictionaries exceeding 4 GB. So we are not limited to 4, 8, 16, 32, 64 series and can use values like 5 GB or 22 GB. Archives with dictionaries exceeding 4 GB can be unpacked only by WinRAR 7.0 or newer. Increasing the dictionary size can improve the compression ratio for large files with distant repeated blocks, like virtual machine disk images. It also can be efficient for sets of large similar files in a solid archive, such as a collection of software ISO images differing by version or localization.
  • WinRAR issues a prompt allowing to cancel or continue if dictionary size in extracted RAR archive exceeds "Maximum dictionary size allowed to extract" parameter in "Settings/Compression". It is done to prevent the unexpected excessive memory allocation. In the command line mode by default WinRAR refuses to unpack archives with dictionary exceeding 4 GB. Use -md or -mdx to allow unpacking dictionaries up to and including the specified size. Unlike -md, -mdx is applied to extraction only and can be added to RAR environment variable, not affecting archiving commands.
  • "Define dictionary sizes" dialog in "Settings/Compression" can be used to customize dictionary sizes proposed in the drop down list associated with "Dictionary size" field in "Archive name and parameters" dialog.
  • Alternate search algorithm, optimized to locate longer and more distant repeated data blocks, can be used when creating RAR archives. It helps to improve the compression ratio and sometimes speed for redundant data like big text files. It increases memory usage and might reduce the compression speed for some types of data. It can be turned on or off with "Long range search" options in "Advanced compression parameters" dialog or with -mcl[+|-] switch. If "Auto" option is selected, WinRAR applies the long range search depending on the compression method, dictionary size and other parameters. This algorithm is required for dictionaries exceeding 4 GB and turning it off is ignored for such dictionaries.
  • Much slower and more exhaustive repeated data search and compression algorithm can be enabled with "Exhaustive search" option in "Advanced compression parameters" dialog or with -mcx switch. It might provide the additional compression gain for some types of redundant data, but at much lower compression speed. Long range search is needed to implement this mode efficiently, so the exhaustive search option activates it automatically. Both long range and exhaustive search option do not affect the compatibility of created archives. So if dictionary size is in 128 KB - 4 GB range, archives created with these search options can be unpacked by all WinRAR versions beginning from 5.0.
  • Maximum path length limit is increased from 2047 to 65535 characters.
  • Creating archives in RAR 4.x format isn't supported anymore. Options and switches specific for this format are removed. It doesn't affect RAR 4.x archives decompression, which is included into WinRAR.
  • "Propagate Mark of the Web" option in "Settings/Security" dialog controls assigning the archive Mark of the Web to extracted files. It is possible to prohibit propagating, allow it for several predefined file groups, for all files or for files matching user defined file masks. Mark of the Web is the security zone information added by Internet browsers to downloaded files. It can be used by various software for security purposes. It is supported only by GUI WinRAR. Console RAR doesn't propagate Mark of the Web regardless of this option.
  • "Attributes" column can be enabled in "Settings/File list/Columns". It displays file attribute abbreviations, such as 'A' for "Archive" and 'D' for directory. If file attribute isn't among those recognized by WinRAR, the numeric value of file attributes is also displayed. This value uses hexadecimal format for Windows attributes or octal format for Unix attributes.
  • "Benchmark" command allows to specify the exact number of threads and copy results to clipboard. Information about WinRAR and Windows versions, CPU and memory is added to benchmark window.
  • "Remove redundant folders from extraction path" option in "Settings/Paths" is now applicable also to extraction commands invoked from WinRAR user interface and to multiple archives unpacked to separate folders. It removes a destination path component, only if its name matches both the archive name and root archived folder name, provided that there are no other folders or files in archive root. For example, it will remove one of "Pictures" in the destination path if we unpack Pictures.rar containing the root "Pictures" folder to "Pictures" destination. Previously it worked only for a single archive extracted from context menu and didn't check if archived folder name matches the last destination path component.
  • "Word wrap in comment" option in "Interface" options group in "Settings/General" toggles the word wrap mode in archive comment window.
  • Dictionary size data in archive information dialog is now available for .bz2, .lz, .tar.bz2, .tar.gz, .tar.lz, .tar.zst archives.
  • Switch -ol- prohibits archiving and extracting symbolic links.
  • Switches -sl[u] and -sm[u] recognize [k|K|m|M|g|G|t|T] size units for kilobytes, thousands of bytes, megabytes, millions of bytes, gigabytes, billions of bytes, terabytes, trillions of bytes. If unit character is 'b', 'B' or not present, bytes are assumed. Previously these switches accepted bytes only.
  • SFX TempMode command accepts the optional @set:user parameter allowing to modify temporary folder permissions, so only the current user can access it. It prohibits a local user to replace files in a temporary folder if SFX is started under another account. It also can be enabled with "Restrict folder access" option in "Advanced SFX options/Modes" dialog. Some installers might fail to start in a folder created with
  • set:user parameter.
  • File permissions and NTFS alternate streams are not saved for hard link entries. They are saved only for the source file these entries refer to. It allows to reduce the archive size, because such file properties are automatically propagated to hard links copies when extracting.
  • Keyboard shortcuts, such as Ctrl+A to select all files or Alt+E to unpack found archives, are now functional in "Search results" window also while search is still in progress. Previously they were available only after completing search.
  • Switch -v[unit] recognizes 't' and 'T' as terabytes and trillions of bytes for volume size units.
  • Warning is issued if leading '-' character is missing in a parameter specified in "Additional switches" field of WinRAR archiving and extraction dialogs. Also it is issued for parameters lacking '-' in RAR environment variable and rar.ini file. Previously such malformed parameters were ignored silently.
  • "Convert archives" command displays the smooth total operation progress. Previously the total progress was updated abruptly after converting an archive and was visible only when processing multiple archives.
  • Proper progress is displayed when compressing symbolic link targets.
  • "Integrate WinRAR into shell" option in WinRAR "Settings/Integration" is grayed out if "GlobalIntegration=0" is present in winrar.ini file.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • "User defined archive extensions" field in "Settings/Integration" was not saved if winrar.ini was used to store settings and WinRAR was started under non-administrator user account.

New in WinRAR 6.24 (Oct 5, 2023)

  • Bugs fixed:
  • WinRAR and UnRAR.dll extraction command dereferenced a null pointer and crashed when processing a zero length archive name in the archive metadata stored with -am switch.
  • WinRAR and UnRAR.dll extraction command overwrote extracted file data with contents of ::$DATA NTFS alternate data stream, if such stream was present in the archive. In this case unpacked data size and checksum could mismatch file size and checksum displayed in WinRAR file list. It didn't affect file name and type, which were displayed properly.

New in WinRAR 6.24 Beta 1 (Sep 18, 2023)

  • Bugs fixed:
  • WinRAR and UnRAR.dll extraction command dereferenced a null pointer and crashed when processing a zero length archive name in the archive metadata stored with -am switch.
  • WinRAR and UnRAR.dll extraction command overwrote extracted file data with contents of ::$DATA NTFS alternate data stream, if such stream was present in the archive. In this case unpacked data size and checksum could mismatch file size and checksum displayed in WinRAR file list. It didn't affect file name and type, which were displayed properly.

New in WinRAR 6.23 (Aug 2, 2023)

  • Added extraction of XZ archives utilizing ARM64 filter
  • Rar$LS* temporary files, created when extracting or testing multiple archives from Windows context menu, are now deleted immediately
  • Previously they were deleted only on next WinRAR runs and only if they were at least 1 hour old
  • Bugs fixed:
  • a) a security issue involving out of bounds write is fixed in RAR4 recovery volumes processing code. We are thankful to goodbyeselene working with Trend Micro Zero Day Initiative for letting us know about this bug
  • b) WinRAR could start a wrong file after a user double clicked an item in a specially crafted archive. We are thankful to Andrey Polovinkin from Group-IB Threat Intelligence unit for letting us know about this bug
  • c) if both NTFS and Unix time extra fields were available for a file in ZIP archive, extraction command ignored the second extra field even if it provided more time fields than first one
  • d) interface themes were applied to archive icons even if "Apply to archive icons" option in "Organize themes" dialog was turned off

New in WinRAR 6.23 Beta 1 (Jul 20, 2023)

  • Added extraction of XZ archives utilizing ARM64 filter.
  • Rar$LS* temporary files, created when extracting or testing multiple archives from Windows context menu, are now deleted immediately. Previously they were deleted only on next WinRAR runs and only if they were at least 1 hour old.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • A security issue involving out of bounds write is fixed in RAR4 recovery volumes processing code.
  • WinRAR could start a wrong file after a user double clicked an item in a specially crafted archive.
  • If both NTFS and Unix time extra fields were available for a filen in ZIP archive, extraction command ignored the second extra field even if it provided more time fields than first one;
  • Interface themes were applied to archive icons even if "Apply to archive icons" option in "Organize themes" dialog

New in WinRAR 6.21 / 6.22 Beta 1 (May 14, 2023)

  • Bugs fixed:
  • Extracting individual files from solid archives created by RAR versions older than 2.0, could fail in WinRAR 6.20 and 6.21. It didn't affect extracting the entire archive, which was performed correctly;
  • Files in Unix ARJ archives could be erroneously displayed as folders in WinRAR file list;
  • "Display files in Explorer" extraction option was ignored if "When done: Close WinRAR" option was also set and archive was opened in WinRAR before extracting;
  • File size value in the internal viewer status bar didn't include the byte order mask field, displaying a smaller than actual size for Unicode files.

New in WinRAR 6.21 (Feb 20, 2023)

  • Both file and folder modification timestamps are restored when unpacking TAR and TAR based archives like tar.gz and tar.bz2. Previously only file modification timestamps were set for these archive formats.
  • Added decompression of .tar.zst archives with dictionary exceeding 128 MB. WinRAR 6.20 allowed such dictionary for .zst, but not for .tar.zst.
  • Switches -ed and -e+d are also supported by ZIP archives. Previously they worked only for RAR archives.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • If unencrypted file was stored after encrypted in the same RAR archive and both files had been unpacked in the same extraction command, WinRAR 6.20 failed to unpack the unencrypted file;
  • In some cases a wrong detailed reason of file open error could be displayed in the second line of open error message.

New in WinRAR 6.21 Beta 1 (Jan 24, 2023)

  • Switches -ed and -e+d are also supported by ZIP archives.
  • Previously they worked only for RAR archives.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • If unencrypted file was stored after encrypted in the same RAR archive and both files had been unpacked in the same extraction command, WinRAR 6.20 failed to unpack the unencrypted file;
  • In some cases a wrong detailed reason of file open error could bedisplayed in the second line of open error message.

New in WinRAR 6.20 (Jan 23, 2023)

  • If "Autodetect passwords" option in "Organizer passwords" dialog is enabled and password matching a processing archive is present among saved passwords, it is applied automatically. This option is applicable only for archives in RAR 5.0 and ZIP formats, which allow to verify the password validity quickly.
  • There is a minor chance of incorrect password detection for ZIP archives if stored passwords do not include a proper one. If encrypted ZIP archive extraction fails, you can try to disable this option, repeat extraction and enter a valid password manually.
  • If extraction command involves only a part of files in RAR archive, the additional archive analysis is performed when starting extraction. It helps to properly unpack file references even if reference source is not selected. It works for most of RAR archives except for volumes on multiple removable media and archives containing a very large number of references.
  • Also in some cases such analysis may help to optimize the amount of processing data when extracting individual files from semi-solid archives created with -s and -se switches.
  • "Save original archive name and time" option on "Options" page of archiving dialog allows to save the original archive name and creation time. If archive includes such saved name and time, they are displayed on "Info" page of "Show information" command and can be restored on "Options" page of same command. Restoring involves renaming an archive to original name and setting the saved time as the archive creation and modification time.
  • Switch -ams or just -am together with archive modification commands can be used to save the archive name and time in the command line mode. These saved parameters are displayed in header of "l" and "v" commands output and can be restored with -amr switch combined with "ch" command, such as "rar ch -amr arc.rar". If -amr is specified, "ch" ignores other archive modification switches.
  • Faster RAR5 compression of poorly compressible data on modern CPUs with 8 or more execution threads. This applies to all methods except "Fastest", which performance remains the same.
  • "Repair" command efficiency is improved for shuffled data blocks in recovery record protected RAR5 archives.
  • If file size has grown after archiving when creating non-solid RAR volumes, such file is stored without compression regardless of volume number, provided that file isn't split between volumes. Previously it worked only for files in the first volume.
  • Added decompression of .zipx archives containing file references, provided that both reference source and target are selected and reference source precedes the target inside of archive.
  • Typically, if .zipx archive includes file references, it is necessary to unpack the entire archive to extract references successfully.
  • Added decompression of .zst long range mode archives with dictionary exceeding 128 MB. Previously it was possible to decompress them only if dictionary was 128 MB or less.
  • If "Turn PC off", "Hibernate", "Sleep" or "Restart PC" archiving options are enabled in WinRAR, a prompt to confirm or cancel such power management action is displayed directly before starting it. If no selection was made by user for 30 seconds, the proposed action is confirmed and started automatically.
  • This prompt is also displayed for -ioff switch in WinRAR command line, but not in console RAR command line.
  • Context menu in WinRAR file list provides "Open in internal viewer" command for archive files. It can be helpful if you wish to view the archive raw data in internal viewer. For example, to read an email archive with UUE attachments included.
  • Usual "View" command always displays the archive contents. If file is recognized as UUE archive, "View" would show UUE attachments.
  • Recovery record size is displayed on "Archive" page of file properties nvoked from Explorer context menu for archives in RAR5 format. Previously there was only "Present" instead of exact size for RAR5 archives.
  • When archiving from stdin with -si switch, RAR displays the current amount of read bytes as the progress indicator.
  • If wrong password is specified when adding files to encrypted solid RAR5 archive, a password will be requested again. Previous versions cancelled archiving in this case.
  • If both options "Test archived files" and "Clear attribute "Archive" after compressing" or their command line -t -ac equivalents are enabled when archiving, "Archive" attribute will be cleared only if test was completed successfully. Previously it was cleared even when test reported errors.
  • NoDrives value containing the bit mask to hide drives can be now read from "HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareWinRARPolicy" Registry key, which allows to include it to winrar.ini if necessary. Its "SoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPolicies" locations in HKEY_CURRENT_USER and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE are also supported.
  • Previously only "SoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPolicies" in HKEY_CURRENT_USER was recognized.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • Archive modification commands could fail for some ZIP archives with file comments;
  • Fixed a memory leak when reading contents of .tar.bz2 archives;
  • If source and resulting archive format is the same, the archive conversion command didn't set the original archive time to a newly created archive even if "Original archive time" option was selected in archiving parameters;
  • If "Merge volumes contents" option in "Settings/File list" was turned on, the folder packed size in WinRAR file list could beless than expected when browsing a multivolume archive contents. It didn't include the packed size of file parts continuing from previous volume into calculation;
  • Even if "Set file security" extraction option was turned off by default, extraction commands in Explorer context menu still attempted to restore NTFS file security data;
  • WinRAR could read data beyond the end of buffer and crash when unpacking files from specially crafted ZIP archive. We are thankful to Bakker working with Trend Micro Zero Day Initiative for letting us know about this bug.

New in WinRAR 6.20 Beta 3 (Dec 15, 2022)

  • If Zone.Identifier alternate NTFS stream, also known as Mark of the Web,
  • is present both in archived office document file and host archive,
  • WinRAR sets a stream with more restricted security zone to unpacked file.
  • Previous beta always preferred the archive security zone if it was
  • "Internet" or "Restricted sites".
  • We are thankful to Amine Brahmi for bringing our attention to
  • conflicting Zone.Identifier streams in this case.
  • "Archive" page in archive properties in Windows Explorer:
  • a) "Original name" and "Original time" field names are not displayed
  • anymore for non-RAR archives;
  • b) the compression dictionary size is displayed also for non-RAR
  • archives when available.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • a) if "Launch folder windows in a separate process" Windows Explorer
  • option was enabled in Windows 11 22H2, in some cases WinRAR
  • context menu items didn't perform any action on a click;
  • b) WinRAR could read data beyond the end of buffer and crash
  • when unpacking files from specially crafted ZIP archive.
  • We are thankful to Bakker working with Trend Micro Zero Day
  • Initiative for letting us know about this bug.

New in WinRAR 6.20 Beta 2 (Nov 13, 2022)

  • If Zone.Identifier alternate NTFS stream, also known as Mark of the Web, is present both in archived office document file and host archive and if archive security zone is set to "Internet" or "Restricted sites", WinRAR sets the host archive stream to unpacked file and ignores the archived file stream.
  • . Bugs fixed:
  • Updating an existing archive in RAR5 format could result in broken archive data in beta 1 if existing archive included the archive comment, encrypted file names and was created by version older than WinRAR 6.20;
  • Updating an archive with -ver -ow -s switches failed with checksum error if -ver removed old archived file versions.
  • Without -s, it could produce a larger than necessary archive
  • With redundant NTFS security data records.

New in WinRAR 6.20 Beta 1 (Oct 25, 2022)

  • If "Autodetect passwords" option in "Organizer passwords" dialog is enabled and password matching a processing archive is present among saved passwords, it is applied automatically. This option is applicable only for archives in RAR 5.0 and ZIP formats, which allow to verify the password validity quickly. There is a minor chance of incorrect password detection for ZIP archives if stored passwords do not include a proper one. If encrypted ZIP archive extraction fails, you can try to disable this option, repeat extraction and enter a valid password manually.
  • If extraction command involves only a part of files in RAR archive, the additional archive analysis is performed when starting extraction. It helps to properly unpack file references even if reference source is not selected. It works for most of RAR archives except for volumes on multiple removable media and archives containing a very large number of references. Also in some cases such analysis may help to optimize the amount of processing data when extracting individual files from semi-solid archives created with -s<N> and -se switches.
  • "Save original archive name and time" option on "Options" page of archiving dialog allows to save the original archive name and creation time. If archive includes such saved name and time, they are displayed on "Info" page of "Show information" command and can be restored on "Options" page of same command. Restoring involves renaming an archive to original name and setting
  • the saved time as the archive creation and modification time. Switch -ams or just -am together with archive modification commands can be used to save the archive name and time in the command line mode. These saved parameters are displayed in header of "l" and "v" commands output and can be restored with -amr switch combined with "ch" command, such as "rar ch -amr arc.rar". If -amr is specified, "ch" ignores other archive modification switches.
  • Faster RAR5 compression of poorly compressible data on modern CPUs with 8 or more execution threads. This applies to all methods except "Fastest", which performance remains the same.
  • "Repair" command efficiency is improved for shuffled data blocks in recovery record protected RAR5 archives.
  • If file size has grown after archiving when creating non-solid RAR volumes, such file is stored without compression regardless of volume number, provided that file isn't split between volumes. Previously it worked only for files in the first volume.
  • Added decompression of .zipx archives containg file references, bprovided that both reference source and target are selectedand reference source precedes the target inside of archive. Typically, if .zipx archive includes file references, it is necessary to unpack the entire archive to extract references succesfully.
  • Added decompression of .zst long range mode archives with dictionary exceeding 128 MB. Previously it was possible to decompress them only if dictionary was 128 MB or less.
  • If "Turn PC off", "Hibernate", "Sleep" or "Restart PC" archiving options are enabled in WinRAR, a prompt to confirm or cancel such power management action is displayed directly before starting it. If no selection was made by user for 30 seconds, the proposed action is confirmed and started automatically. This prompt is also displayed for -ioff switch in WinRAR command line, but not in console RAR command line.
  • Context menu in WinRAR file list provides "Open in internal viewer" command for archive files. It can be helpful if you wish to view the archive raw data in internal viewer. For example, to read an email archive with UUE attachments included. Usual "View" command always displays the archive contents. If file is recognized as UUE archive, "View" would show UUE attachments.
  • Recovery record size is displayed on "Archive" page of file properties invoked from Explorer context menu for archives in RAR5 format. Previously there was only "Present" instead of exact size for RAR5 archives.
  • When archiving from stdin with -si switch, RAR displays the current amount of read bytes as the progress indicator.
  • If wrong password is specified when adding files to encrypted solid RAR5 archive, a password will be requested again. Previous versions cancelled archiving in this case.
  • If both options "Test archived files" and "Clear attribute "Archive" after compressing" or their command line -t -ac equivalents are enabled when archiving, "Archive" attribute will be cleared only iof test was completed successfully. Previously it was cleared even
  • when test reported errors.
  • NoDrives value containing the bit mask to hide drives can be now read from "HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareWinRARPolicy" Registry key, which allows to include it to winrar.ini if necessary. Its "SoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPolicies" locations in HKEY_CURRENT_USER and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE are also supported. Previously only "SoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPolicies" in HKEY_CURRENT_USER was recognized.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • archive modification commands could fail for some ZIP archives with file comments;
  • fixed a memory leak when reading contents of .tar.bz2 archives;
  • if source and resulting archive format is the same, the archive conversion command didn't set the original archive time to a newly created archive even if "Original archive time" option was selected in archiving parameters;
  • if "Merge volumes contents" option in "Settings/File list" was turned on, the folder packed size in WinRAR file list could be less than expected when browsing a multivolume archive contents. It didn't include the packed size of file parts continuing from previous volume into calculation;
  • even if "Set file security" extraction option was turned off by default, extraction commands in Explorer context menu still attempted to restore NTFS file security data.

New in WinRAR 6.11 (Mar 4, 2022)

  • Added support for Gz archives with large archive comments Previously the extraction command failed to unpack gz archives if comment size exceeded 16 KB
  • Archive comments in gz archives are displayed in the comment window and recognized by "Show information" command Large comments are shown partially Previous versions didn't display Gzip comments
  • Reserved device names followed by file extension, such as auxtxt, are extracted as is in Windows 11 even without "Allow potentially incompatible names" option or -oni command line switch Unlike previous Windows versions, Windows 11 treats such names as usual files Device names without extension, such as aux, still require these options to be unpacked as is regardless of Windows version
  • Switch -mes can be also used to suppress the password prompt and abort when adding files to encrypted solid archive
  • Additional measures to prevent extracting insecure links are implemented
  • Bugs fixed:
  • if password exceeding 127 characters was entered when unpacking an encrypted archive with console RAR, text after 127th character could be erroneously recognized as user's input by different prompts issued later;
  • wrong archived file time could be displayed in overwrite prompt when extracting a file from ZIP archive It happened if such archive included extended file times and was created in another time zone It didn't affect the actual file time, which was set properly upon extraction

New in WinRAR 6.11 Beta 1 (Feb 22, 2022)

  • Added support for Gz archives with large archive comments. Previously the extraction command failed to unpack gz archives if comment size exceeded 16 KB.
  • Archive comments in gz archives are displayed in the comment window and recognized by "Show information" command. Large comments are shown partially. Previous versions didn't display Gzip comments.
  • Reserved device names followed by file extension, such as aux.txt, are extracted as is in Windows 11 even without "Allow potentially incompatible names" option or -oni command line switch. Unlike previous Windows versions, Windows 11 treats such names as usual files. Device names without extension, such as aux, still require these options to be unpacked as is regardless of Windows version.
  • Switch -mes can be also used to suppress the password prompt and abort when adding files to encrypted solid archive.
  • Additional measures to prevent extracting insecure links are implemented.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • if password exceeding 127 characters was entered when unpacking an encrypted archive with console RAR, text after 127th character could be erroneously recognized as user's input by different prompts issued later;
  • wrong archived file time could be displayed in overwrite prompt when extracting a file from ZIP archive. It happened if such archive included extended file times and was created in another time zone. It didn't affect the actual file time, which was set properly upon extraction.

New in WinRAR 6.10 (Jan 24, 2022)

  • WinRAR can unpack contents of .zst and .zipx archives utilizing Zstandard algorithm.
  • Added support of Windows 11 Explorer context menus:
  • Beginning from Windows 11, an application can add only a single top level command or submenu to Explorer context menu.
  • If "Cascaded context menus" in "Integration settings" dialog is on, this single item is a submenu storing all necessary WinRAR commands.
  • If this option is off, only one extraction command for archives and one archiving command for usual files are available.
  • You can select these commands with "Context menu items..." button in "Integration settings" dialog.
  • "Legacy context menus" option in "Settings/Integration" dialog can be used in Windows 11 if WinRAR commands are missing in "Show more options" Windows legacy context menu or in context menus of third party file managers. If WinRAR commands are already present here, keep "Legacy context menus" option turned off to prevent duplicating them:
  • This option is not available in Windows 10 and older.
  • Windows XP is not supported anymore. Minimum required operating system version is Windows Vista.
  • "Close" item is added to "When done" list on "Advanced" page of archiving dialog. It closes WinRAR window, when archiving is done.
  • "When done" list is added to "Options" page of extraction dialog. It allows to select an action like turning a computer off or closing WinRAR after completing extraction.
  • Switch -si can be used when extracting or testing to read archive data from stdin, such as:
  • type docs.rar | rar x -si -o+ -pmypwd dummy docs
  • Even though the archive name is ignored with this switch, an arbitrary dummy archive name has to specified in the command line.
  • Operations requiring backward seeks are unavailable in this mode. It includes displaying archive comments, testing the recovery record, utilizing the quick open information, processing multivolume archives.
  • Prompts requiring user interaction are not allowed. Use -o[+|-|r], -p<pwd> or -mes switches to suppress such prompts.
  • New -ep4<path> switch excludes the path prefix when archiving or extracting if this path is found in the beginning of archived name. Path is compared with names already prepared to store in archive, without drive letters and leading path separators. For example:
  • rar a -ep4textsbooks archive c:textsbookstechnical
  • removes "textbooks" from archived names, so they start from 'technical'.
  • New -mes switch skips encrypted files when extracting or testing. It replaces the former -p- switch.
  • New -op<path> switch sets the destination folder for 'x' and 'e' extraction commands. Unlike <path_to_extract> command line parameter, this switch also accepts paths without trailing path separator character.
  • If 'p' command is used to print a file to stdout, informational messages are suppressed automatically to prevent them mixing with file data.
  • "Generate archive name by mask" option and switch -ag treat only first two 'M' characters after 'H' as minutes. Previously any amount of such characters was considered as minutes:
  • It makes possible to place the time field before the date, like -agHHMM-DDMMYY. Previous versions considered all 'M' in this string as minutes.
  • Maximum allowed size of RAR5 recovery record is increased to 1000% of protected data size. Maximum number of RAR5 recovery volumes can be 10 times larger than protected RAR volumes:
  • Previous WinRAR versions are not able to use the recovery record to repair broken archives if recovery record size exceeds 99%. Similarly, previous versions cannot use recovery volumes if their number is equal or larger than number of RAR volumes.
  • Warning is issued if entered password exceeds the allowed limit of 127 characters and is truncated. Previously such passwords had been truncated silently.
  • If archive includes reserved device names, the underscore character is inserted in the beginning of such names when extracting. For example, aux.txt is converted to _aux.txt. It is done to prevent compatibility problems with software unable to process such names. You can use "Allow potentially incompatible names" option in "Advanced" part of extraction dialog or command line -oni switch to avoid this conversion.
  • WinRAR attempts to reset the file cache before testing an archive. It helps to verify actual data written to disk instead of reading a cached copy.
  • Multiple -v<size> switches specifying different sizes for different volumes are now allowed also for ZIP archives:
  • WinRAR a -v100k -v200k -v300k arcname.zip
  • Previously multiple -v<size> switches were supported only for RAR archives.
  • Switches -sl<size> and -sm<size> can be used in WinRAR.exe command line mode when extracting archives in any supported formats, provided that such archive includes unpacked file sizes. Previously these switches could filter files by size only in RAR and ZIP archives.
  • Newer folder selection dialog is invoked when pressing "Browse" button in WinRAR "Settings/Paths" page, "Repair" and "Convert" commands, also as in few other similar places. Previously a simpler XP style folder selection dialog was opened.
  • When restoring from tray after completing an operation, WinRAR window is positioned under other opened windows, to not interfere with current user activities.
  • "650 MB CD" is removed and "2 GB volumes" is added to the list of predefined volume sizes in "Define volume sizes" dialog invoked from WinRAR "Settings/Compression".
  • "Rename" command selects the file name part up to the final dot. Previously it selected the entire name.
  • If SFX archive size exceeds 4 GB, an error message is issued during compression, immediately after exceeding this threshold. Previously this error was reported only after completing compression. Executables of such size cannot be started by Windows.
  • Command line -en switch is not supported anymore. It created RAR4 archives without the end of archive record.
  • End of archive record permits to gracefully skip external data like digital signatures.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • when editing a file inside of .rar or .zip archive, WinRAR created a new SFX archive instead of updating an existing archive if "Create SFX archive" option was set in the default compression profile;
  • the total progress could be displayed incorrectly when using -oi, -f, -u switches or appropriate GUI options;
  • "Find files" command with "Use all tables" option and command line "it" commands failed to find strings in UTF-16 encoding.

New in WinRAR 6.10 Beta 3 (Dec 10, 2021)

  • "Legacy context menus" option in "Settings/Integration" dialog can be used in Windows 11 if WinRAR commands are missing in "Show more options" Windows legacy context menu or in context menus of third party file managers If WinRAR commands are already present here, keep "Legacy context menus" option turned off to prevent duplicating them
  • This option is not available in Windows 10 and older
  • Added extraction of zst archives starting from so called skippable frame with user defined data Previous beta versions supported zst archives only with standard frame in the beginning
  • Improved the precision of extraction progress for RAR5 archives with large recovery record
  • Bugs fixed:
  • there was a memory leak when unpacking data in XZ format;
  • "Delete archive" extraction option failed to delete zx## parts of multipart zipx archive;
  • an excessive trailing colon was displayed in "lt" command output for numeric Unix owner and group information

New in WinRAR 6.10 Beta 2 (Nov 15, 2021)

  • WinRAR icon is displayed on Windows 11 taskbar after invoking WinRAR from Explorer context menu. There was no icon in previous beta version in this case.
  • Archive information dialog includes the proper compression dictionary size for ZIP Deflate64 and Implode compression methods. Previously it was always 32 KB for them.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • WinRAR shell extension could crash in Windows 11;
  • restoring from tray did not correctly place WinRAR under other opened windows in Windows 7;
  • "Cascaded context menus" option in "Settings" dialog was always displayed as turned on, even if user turned it off earlier.

New in WinRAR 6.10 Beta 1 (Oct 7, 2021)

  • WinRAR can unpack contents of .zst and .zipx archives utilizing Zstandard algortithm.
  • Added support of Windows 11 Explorer context menus.
  • Beginning from Windows 11, an application can add only a single top level command or submenu to Explorer context menu.
  • If "Cascaded context menus" in "Integration settings" dialog is on, this single item is a submenu storing all necessary WinRAR commands.
  • If this option is off, only one extraction command for archives and one archiving command for usual files are available.
  • You can select these commands with "Context menu items..." button in "Integration settings" dialog.
  • Windows XP is not supported anymore. Minimum required operating system version is Windows Vista.
  • "Close" item is added to "When done" list on "Advanced" page of archiving dialog. It closes WinRAR window, when archiving is done.
  • "When done" list is added to "Options" page of extraction dialog. It allows to select an action like turning a computer off or closing WinRAR after completing extraction.
  • Switch -si can be used when extracting or testing to read archive data from stdin, such as: type docs.rar | rar x -si -o+ -pmypwd dummy docs
  • Even though the archive name is ignored with this switch, an arbitrary dummy archive name has to specified in the command line.
  • Operations requiring backward seeks are unavailable in this mode. It includes displaying archive comments, testing the recovery record, utilizing the quick open information, processing multivolume archives.
  • Prompts requiring user interaction are not allowed. Use -o[+|-|r], -p<pwd> or -mes switches to suppress such prompts.
  • New -ep4<path> switch excludes the path prefix when archiving or extracting if this path is found in the beginning of archived name.
  • Path is compared with names already prepared to store in archive, without drive letters and leading path separators. For example: rar a -ep4textsbooks archive c:textsbookstechnical removes "textbooks" from archived names, so they start from 'technical'.
  • New -mes switch skips encrypted files when extracting or testing.
  • New -op<path> switch sets the destination folder for 'x' and 'e' extraction commands. Unlike <path_to_extract> command line parameter, this switch also accepts paths without trailing path separator character.
  • If 'p' command is used to print a file to stdout, informational messages are suppressed automatically to prevent them mixing with file data.
  • "Generate archive name by mask" option and switch -ag treat only first two 'M' characters after 'H' as minutes. Previously any amount of such characters was considered as minutes.
  • It makes possible to place the time field before the date, like -agHHMM-DDMMYY. Previous versions considered all 'M' in this string as minutes.
  • Maximum allowed size of RAR5 recovery record is increased to 1000% of protected data size. Maximum number of RAR5 recovery volumes can be 10 times larger than protected RAR volumes.
  • Previous WinRAR versions are not able to use the recovery record to repair broken archives if recovery record size exceeds 99%. Similarly, previous versions cannot use recovery volumes if their number is equal or larger than number of RAR volumes.
  • Warning is issued if entered password exceeds the allowed limit of 127 characters and is truncated. Previously such passwords had been truncated silently.
  • If archive includes reserved device names, the underscore character is inserted in the beginning of such names when extracting. For example, aux.txt is converted to _aux.txt. It is done to prevent compatibility problems with software unable to process such names.
  • You can use "Allow potentially incompatible names" option in "Advanced" part of extraction dialog or command line -oni switch to avoid this conversion.
  • WinRAR attempts to reset the file cache before testing an archive.
  • It helps to verify actual data written to disk instead of reading a cached copy.
  • Multiple -v<size> switches specifying different sizes for different volumes are now allowed also for ZIP archives: WinRAR a -v100k -v200k -v300k arcname.zip
  • Previously multiple -v<size> switches were supported only for RAR archives.
  • Switches -sl<size> and -sm<size> can be used in WinRAR.exe command line mode when extracting archives in any supported formats, provided that such archive includes unpacked file sizes. Previously these switches could filter files by size only in RAR and ZIP archives.
  • Newer folder selection dialog is invoked when pressing "Browse" button in WinRAR "Settings/Paths" page, "Repair" and "Convert" commands, also as in few other similar places. Previously a simpler XP style folder selection dialog was opened.
  • When restoring from tray after completing an operation, WinRAR window is positioned under other opened windows, to not interfere with current user activities.
  • "650 MB CD" is removed and "2 GB volumes" is added to the list of predefined volume sizes in "Define volume sizes" dialog invoked from WinRAR "Settings/Compression".
  • "Rename" command selects the file name part up to the final dot. Previously it selected the entire name.
  • If SFX archive sizes exceeds 4 GB, an error message is issued during compression, immediately after exceeding this threshold.
  • Previously this error was reported only after completing compression. Executables of such size cannot be started by Windows.
  • Command line -en switch is not supported anymore. It created RAR4 archives without the end of archive record. End of archive record permits to gracefully skip external data like digital signatures.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • when editing a file inside of .rar or .zip archive, WinRAR created a new SFX archive instead of updating an existing archive if "Create SFX archive" option was set in the default compression profile;
  • the total progress could be displayed incorrectly when using -oi, -f, -u switches or appropriate GUI options;
  • "Find files" command with "Use all tables" option and command line "it" commands failed to find strings in UTF-16 encoding.

New in WinRAR 6.02 (Jun 14, 2021)

  • ZIP SFX module refuses to process SFX commands stored in archive comment if such comment is resided after beginning of Authenticode digital signature. It is done to prevent possible attacks with inclusion of ZIP archive into the signature body.
  • We already prohibited extracting contents of such malformed archives in WinRAR 6.01.We are thankful to Jacob Thompson - Mandiant Advantage Labs for reporting this issue.
  • WinRAR uses https instead of http in the web notifier window, home page and themes links. It also implements additional checks within the web notifier. This is done to prevent a malicious web page from executing existing files on a user's computer. Such attack is only possible if the intruder has managed to spoof or otherwise control user's DNS records. Some other factors are also involved in limiting the practical application of this attack. We would like to express our gratitude to Igor Sak-Sakovskiyfor bringing this issue to our attention.
  • Where appropriate, SFX archive displays the additional line with detailed error information provided by operating system.
  • For example, previously such archive would display "Cannot create file" message alone. Now this message is followed by a detailed reason like access denied or file being used by another process. In the past this extended error information was available in but not in SFX archives.
  • Switch -idn hides archived names also in 'v' and 'l' commands. It can be useful if only the archive type or total information is needed.
  • If -ibck -ri<priority> switches are used together, WinRAR process sets the priority specified in -ri switch. Previous versions ignored -ri and set the priority to low in the presence of -ibck switch.
  • When using "File/Change drive" command, WinRAR saves the last folder of previous drive and restores it if that drive is selected again later.
  • Name of unpacking file is now included into WinRAR incorrect password warning for RAR5 archives. It can be helpful when unpacking a non-solid archive containing files encrypted with different passwords.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • "Convert archives" command issued erroneous "The specified password is incorrect" message after succesfully converting RAR archive with encrypted file names if new password was set and archive was opened in WinRAR shell;
  • if command progress window was resized up and then quickly resized down to original dimensions, window contents could be positioned incorrectly.

New in WinRAR 6.02 Beta 1 (May 17, 2021)

  • ZIP SFX module refuses to process SFX commands stored in archive comment if such comment is resided after beginning of Authenticode digital signature. It is done to prevent possible attacks with inclusion of ZIP archive into the signature body.
  • We already prohibited extracting contents of such malformed archives in WinRAR 6.01.
  • We are thankful to FireEye Mandiant team for reporting this issue.
  • WinRAR uses https instead of http in the web notifier window, home page and themes links. It also implements additional checks within the web notifier. This is done to prevent a malicious web page from executing existing files on a user's computer. Such attacks are only possible if the intruder has managed to spoof or otherwise control user's DNS records. Other factors are also involved in limiting its practical application, including a security alert prompt asking for a user's confirmation before opening a malicious page.
  • We would like to express our gratitude to Igor Sak-Sakovskiy for bringing this issue to our attention.
  • Where appropriate, SFX archive displays the additional line with detailed error information provided by operating system.
  • For example, previously such archive would display "Cannot create file" message alone. Now this message is followed by a detailed reason like access denied or file being used by another process.
  • In the past this extended error information was available in WinRAR, but not in SFX archives.
  • Switch -idn hides archived names also in 'v' and 'l' commands. It can be useful if only the archive type or total information is needed.
  • If -ibck -ri<priority> switches are used together, WinRAR process sets the priority specified in -ri switch. Previous versions ignored -ri and set the priority to low in the presence of -ibck switch.
  • When using "File/Change drive" command, WinRAR saves the last folder of previous drive and restores it if that drive is selected again later.
  • Name of unpacking file is now included into WinRAR incorrect password warning for RAR5 archives. It can be helpful when unpacking a non-solid archive containing files encrypted with different passwords.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • "Convert archives" command issued erroneous "The specified password is incorrect" message after succesfully converting RAR archive with encrypted file names if new password was set and archive was opened in WinRAR shell;
  • if command progress window was resized up and then quickly resized down to original dimensions, window contents could be positioned incorrectly.

New in WinRAR 6.01 (Apr 12, 2021)

  • Ctrl+A keyboard shortcut selects the entire text in WinRAR comment window.
  • If -idn switch is used together with -t or -df in console RAR when archiving, it additionally disables "Deleting <filename>" or "Testing <filename>" messages, normally issued by these switches. Also -idn disables folder creation messages when extracting a file to non-existing folder.
  • WinRAR and ZIP SFX module refuse to extract contents of ZIP SFX archives if ZIP central directory is resided after beginning of Authenticode digital signature. It is done to prevent possible attacks with inclusion of ZIP archive into signature body.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • "Convert archives" command could incorrectly convert Unicode comments in RAR archives.
  • If two archive information windows had been opened from Explorer context menu, the compression ratio bar in the first window could erroneously display a value for second archive. It did not affect the ratio and other text details at the right of window. Only the vertical bar at the left could be updated to a wrong value;
  • If "Wait if other WinRAR copies are active" option was enabled in extraction dialog, "Waiting for another WinRAR copy" title was not set in command progress window while waiting;
  • When extracting a symbolic link, previous versions did not overwrite existing symbolic links even if user requested it in overwrite prompt.

New in WinRAR 6.01 Beta 1 (Mar 5, 2021)

  • Ctrl+A keyboard shortcut selects the entire text in WinRAR comment window.
  • If -idn switch is used together with -t or -df in console RAR when archiving, it additionally disables "Deleting <filename>" or "Testing <filename>" messages, normally issued by these switches.
  • Also -idn disables folder creation messages when extracting a file to non-existing folder.
  • WinRAR and ZIP SFX module refuse to extract contents of ZIP SFX archives if ZIP central directory is resided after beginning of Authenticode digital signature. It is done to prevent possible attacks with inclusion of ZIP archive into signature body.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • "Convert archives" command could incorrectly convert Unicode comments in RAR archives.
  • If two archive information windows had been opened from Explorer context menu, the compression ratio bar in the first window could erroneously display a value for second archive.
  • It did not affect the ratio and other text details at the right of window. Only the vertical bar at the left could be updated to a wrong value;
  • If "Wait if other WinRAR copies are active" option was enabled in extraction dialog, "Waiting for another WinRAR copy" title was not set in command progress window while waiting;
  • When extracting a symbolic link, previous versions did not overwrite existing symbolic links even if user requested it in overwrite prompt.

New in WinRAR 6.00 (Dec 7, 2020)

  • "Ignore" and "Ignore All" options are added to read error prompt. "Ignore" allows to continue processing with already read file part only and "Ignore All" does it for all future read errors. For example, if you archive a file, which portion is locked by another process, and if "Ignore" is selected in read error prompt, only a part of file preceding the unreadable region will be saved into archive. It can help to avoid interrupting lengthy archiving operations, though be aware that files archived with "Ignore" are incomplete.If switch -y is specified, "Ignore" is applied to all files by default. Previously available "Retry" and "Quit" options are still present in read error prompt as well.
  • Exit code 12 is returned in the command line mode in case of read errors.This code is returned for all options in the read error prompt, including a newly introduced "Ignore" option. Previously more common fatal error code 2 was returned for read errors.
  • If several archives are selected, "Extract archives to" option group in "Options" page of extraction dialog can be used to place extracted files to specified destination folder, to separate subfolders in destination folder, to separate subfolders in archive folders and directly to archive folders. It replaces "Extract archives to subfolders" option and available only if multiple archives are selected.
  • New -ad2 switch places extracted files directly to archive's own folder. Unlike -ad1, it does not create a separate subfolder for each unpacked archive.
  • "Additional switches" option in "Options" page of archiving and extraction dialogs allows to specify WinRAR command line switches It might be useful if there is no option in WinRAR graphical interface matching a switch. Use this feature only if you are familiar with WinRAR command line syntax and clearly understand what specified switches are intended for.
  • Compression parameters in "Benchmark" command are changed to 32 MB dictionary and "Normal" method. They match RAR5 default mode and more suitable to estimate the typical performance of recent WinRAR versions than former 4 MB "Best" intended for RAR4 format. Latest "Benchmark" results cannot be compared with previous versions directly. New parameters set produces different values, likely lower because of eight times larger dictionary size.
  • When unpacking a part of files from solid volume set, WinRAR attempts to skip volumes in the beginning and start extraction from volume closest to specified file and with reset solid statistics. By default WinRAR resets the solid statistics in the beginning of large enough solid volumes where possible. For such volumes extracting a part of files from the middle of volume set can be faster now. It does not affect performance when all archived files are unpacked.
  • Previously WinRAR automatically resorted to extracting from first volume, when user started extraction from non-first volume and first volume was available. Now WinRAR does so only if all volumes between first and specified are also available.
  • Warning is issued when closing WinRAR if one or more archived files had been modified by external apps, but failed to be saved back to archive, because an external app still locks them. Such warning includes the list of modified files and proposes to quit immediately and lose changes or return to WinRAR and close an editor app. Previous versions issued a similar warning while editing a file, but did not remind it again when quitting.
  • "Move to Recycle Bin" option in "Delete archive" options group of extraction dialog places deleted archives to Recycle Bin instead of deleting them permanently.
  • New "Clear history..." command in "Options" menu allows to remove names of recently opened archives in "File" menu and clear drop down lists with previously entered values in dialogs. For example, these values include archive names in archiving dialog and destination paths in extraction dialog.
  • "File time" options in "Advanced" part of extraction dialog are now available for 7z archives. Additionally to modification time, WinRAR can set creation and last access time when unpacking such archives.
  • ""New" submenu items" options group is added to "Settings/Integration/Context menu items..." dialog. You can use these options to remove "WinRAR archive" and "WinRAR ZIP archive" entries in "New" submenu of Windows context menu. New state of these option is applied only after you press "OK" both in "Context menu items" and its parent "Settings" dialog.
  • <Max>, <Min> and <Hide> commands can be inserted before the program name in SFX "Setup" command to run a program in maximized, minimized or hidden window. For example:
  • Setup=<Hide>setup.exe
  • It is possible to specify an additional high resolution logo for SFX module. If such logo is present, SFX module scales and displays it in high DPI Windows mode, providing the better visible quality compared to resizing the standard logo. Use "High resolution SFX logo" in "Advanced SFX options" dialog to define such logo. In command line mode add second -iimg switch to set the high resolution logo. Recommended size of high resolution logo PNG file is 186x604 pixels.
  • If archive currently opened in WinRAR shell was deleted or moved by another program, WinRAR displays "Inaccessible" before archive name in the window title. Also it flashes the window caption and taskbar button.
  • "Total information" option in "Report" dialog is renamed to "Headers and totals". Now it also adds headers of report columns additionally to total information about listed files and archives.
  • If archive processing is started from Windows context menu in multiple monitor system, WinRAR operation progress and dialog use the monitor with context menu. While basic multiple monitor support was present in previous versions shell extension for mouse driven commands, now it is extended to operations initiated from keyboard and to dropping files to archives.
  • New -imon<number> switch allows to select a monitor to display WinRAR operation progress and dialogs in the command line mode. Use -imon1 for primary and -imon2 for secondary monitor. For example, "WinRAR x -imon2 arcname" will start extraction on secondary monitor. It works only in the command line mode and does not affect interactive WinRAR graphical inteface also as console RAR.
  • Switch -idn hides archived names output in archiving, extraction and some other commands in console RAR. Other messages and total percentage are not affected. You can use this switch to reduce visual clutter and console output overhead when archiving or extracting a lot of small files. Minor visual artifacts, such as percentage indicator overwriting few last characters of error messages, are possible with -idn.
  • Former "-im - show more information" switch is changed to "-idv - display verbose output" for consistency with console RAR -id[c,d,p,q] message control options and avoid a potential name conflict with newer -imon switch. While WinRAR still recognizes both -im and -idv, in the future -im support can be dropped.
  • It is allowed to add an optional %arcname% variable to compression profile name. Such variable will be replaced with actual archive name. It might be convenient when using with "Add to context menu" profile option. For example, you can create ZIP compression profile and set its name to "Add to %arcname%", to display it with actual ZIP archive name in context menu.
  • Ctrl+C and Ctrl+Ins keyboard shortcuts can be used in "Diagnostic messages" window to copy contents to clipboard.
  • More text is allowed in tray icon hint before a lengthy text is truncated. Also such text is now truncated in the middle of string so both command type and completion percentage are still visible.
  • In case of clean install, if previous version compression profiles are not present, "Files to store without compression" field in newly created predefined compression profiles is set to: *.rar *.zip *.cab *.7z *.ace *.arj *.bz2 *.gz *.lha *.lzh *.taz *.tgz *.xz *.txz
  • You can change this field and save a modified value to compression profile later. Previous versions set this field to blank for clean install.
  • Destination path history in extraction dialog treats paths like 'folder' and 'folder' as the same path and displays only 'folder' entry. Previously they occupied two entries in the history.
  • "Enable Itanium executable compression" GUI option and -mci command line switch are removed. Optimized compression of Itanium executables is not supported anymore. WinRAR still can decompress already existing archives utilizing Itanium executable compression.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • "Lock", "Comment" and "Protect" commands could not be applied to several archives selected in WinRAR file list at once;
  • SFX archive process did not terminate after completin extraction in Windows 10 if archive comment included "Setup"and "SetupCode" commands, did not include "TempMode" command and setup program was running for more than 8 minutes;
  • compression profiles with quote character in profile name could not be invoked from Explorer context menu.

New in WinRAR 6.00 Beta 2 (Nov 12, 2020)

  • "Convert" and "Wizard: Unpack an archive" commands report the file open error if archive was deleted by some other application before processing. Previously they skipped such archives silently.
  • "Find" command issues "No files or folders selected" warning for no items selected and "Selected items" search area.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • in beta 1 names of interface themes were added to "Folder tree" submenu instead of "Themes";
  • %arcname% variable was not expanded in archiving dialog profile name when used in default profile.

New in WinRAR 6.00 Beta 1 (Oct 22, 2020)

  • "Ignore" and "Ignore All" options are added to read error prompt. "Ignore" allows to continue processing with already read file part
  • only and "Ignore All" does it for all future read errors.
  • For example, if you archive a file, which portion is locked by another process, and if "Ignore" is selected in read error prompt, only a part of file preceding the unreadable region will be saved into archive.
  • It can help to avoid interrupting lengthy archiving operations, though be aware that files archived with "Ignore" are incomplete. If switch -y is specified, "Ignore" is applied to all files by default. Previosuly available "Retry" and "Quit" options are still present in read error prompt as well.
  • Exit code 12 is returned in the command line mode in case of read errors. This code is returned for all options in the read error prompt, including a newly introduced "Ignore" option. Previously more common fatal error code 2 was returned for read errors.
  • If several archives are selected, "Extract archives to" option group in "Options" page of extraction dialog can be used to place extracted files to specified destination folder, to separate subfolders in destination folder, to separate subfolders in archive folders
  • and directly to archive folders. It replaces "Extract archives to subfolders" option and available only if multiple archives are selected.
  • New -ad2 switch places extracted files directly to archive's own folder. Unlike -ad1, it does not create a separate subfolder for each unpacked archive.
  • "Additional switches" option in "Options" page of archiving and extraction dialogs allows to specify WinRAR command line switches. It might be useful if there is no option in WinRAR graphical interface matching a switch. Use this feature only if you are familiar with WinRAR command line syntax and clearly understand what specified switches are intended for.
  • Compression parameters in "Benchmark" command are changed to 32 MB dictionary and "Normal" method. They match RAR5 default mode and more suitable to estimate the typical performance of recent WinRAR versions than former 4 MB "Best" intended for RAR4 format. Latest "Benchmark" results cannot be compared with previous versions directly. New parameters set produces different values, likely lower because of eight times larger dictionary size.
  • When unpacking a part of files from solid volume set, WinRAR attempts to skip volumes in the beginning and start extraction from volume closest to specified file and with reset solid statistics. By default WinRAR resets the solid statistics in the beginnin of large enough solid volumes where possible. For such volumes extracting a part of files from the middle of volume set can be faster now.
  • It does not affect performance when all archived files are unpacked.
  • Previously WinRAR automatically resorted to extracting from first volume, when user started extraction from non-first volume and first volume was available. Now WinRAR does so only if all volumes between first and specified are also available.
  • Warning is issued when closing WinRAR if one or more archived files had been modified by external apps, but failed to be saved back to archive, because an external app still locks them. Such warning includes the list of modified files and proposes to quit immediately and lose changes or return to WinRAR and close an editor app. Previous versions issued a similar warning while editing a file, but did not remind it again when quitting.
  • "Move to Recycle Bin" option in "Delete archive" options group of extraction dialog places deleted archives to Recycle Bin instead of deleting them permanently.
  • New "Clear history..." command in "Options" menu allows to remove names of recently opened archives in "File" menu and clear drop down lists with previously entered values in dialogs. For example, these values include archive names in archiving dialog and destination paths in extraction dialog.
  • "File time" options in "Advanced" part of extraction dialog are now available for 7z archives. Additionally to modification time, WinRAR can set creation and last access time when unpacking such archives.
  • ""New" submenu items" options group is added to "Settings/Integration/Context menu items..." dialog. You can use these options to remove "WinRAR archive" and "WinRAR ZIP archive" entries in "New" submenu of Windows context menu. New state of these option is applied only after you press "OK" both in "Context menu items" and its parent "Settings" dialog.
  • <Max>, <Min> and <Hide> commands can be inserted before the program name in SFX "Setup" command to run a program in maximized, minimized or hidden window. For example: Setup=<Hide>setup.exe
  • It is possible to specify an additional high resolution logo for SFX module. If such logo is present, SFX module scales and displays it in high DPI Windows mode, providing the better visible quality compared to resizing the standard logo. Use "High resolution SFX logo" in "Advanced SFX options" dialog to define such logo. In command line mode add second -iimg switch to set the high resolution logo. Recommended size of high resolution logo PNG file is 186x604 pixels.
  • If archive currently opened in WinRAR shell was deleted or moved by another program, WinRAR displays "Inaccessible" before archive name in the window title. Also it flashes the window caption and taskbar button.
  • "Total information" option in "Report" dialog is renamed to "Headers and totals". Now it also adds headers of report column additionally to total information about listed files and archives.
  • If archive processing is started from Windows context menu in multiple monitor system, WinRAR operation progress and dialogs use the monitor with context menu. While basic multiple monitor support was present in previous versions shell extension for mouse driven commands, now it is extended to operations initiated from keyboard and to dropping files to archives.
  • New -imon<number> switch allows to select a monitor to display WinRAR operation progress and dialogs in the command line mode. Use -imon1 for primary and -imon2 for secondary monitor. For example, "WinRAR x -imon2 arcname" will start extraction on secondary monitor. It works only in the command line mode and does not affect interactive WinRAR graphical inteface also as console RAR.
  • Switch -idn hides archived names output in archiving, extraction and some other commands in console RAR. Other messages and total percentage are not affected. You can use this switch to reduce visual clutter and console output overhead when archiving or extracting a lot of small files. Minor visual artifacts, such as percentage indicator overwriting few last characters of error messages, are possible with -idn.
  • Former "-im - show more information" switch is changed to "-idv - display verbose output" for consistency with console RAR -id[c,d,p,q] message control options and avoid a potential name conflict with newer -imon switch. While WinRAR still recognizes both -im and -idv, in the future -im support can be dropped.
  • It is allowed to add an optional %arcname% variable to compression profile name. Such variable will be replaced with actual archive name. It might be convenient when using with "Add to context menu" profile option. For example, you can create ZIP compression profile and set its name to "Add to %arcname%", to display it with actual ZIP archive name in context menu.
  • Ctrl+C and Ctrl+Ins keyboard shortcuts can be used in "Diagnostic messages" window to copy contents to clipboard.
  • More text is allowed in tray icon hint before a lengthy text is truncated. Also such text is now truncated in the middle of string, so both command type and completion percentage are still visible.
  • In case of clean install, if previous version compression profiles are not present, "Files to store without compression" field in newly created predefined compression profiles is set to: *.rar *.zip *.cab *.7z *.ace *.arj *.bz2 *.gz *.lha *.lzh *.taz *.tgz *.xz *.txz
  • You can change this field and save a modified value to compression profile later. Previous versions set this field to blank for clean install.
  • Destination path history in extraction dialog treats paths like 'folder' and 'folder' as the same path and displays only 'folder' entry. Previously they occupied two entries in the history.
  • "Enable Itanium executable compression" GUI option and -mci command line switch are removed. Optimized compression of Itanium executables is not supported anymore. WinRAR still can decompress already existing archives utilizing Itanium executable compression.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • "Lock", "Comment" and "Protect" commands could not be applied to several archives selected in WinRAR file list at once;
  • SFX archive process did not terminate after completing extraction in Windows 10 if archive comment included "Setup" and "SetupCode" commands, did not include "TempMode" command and setup program was running for more than 8 minutes;
  • compression profiles with quote character in profile name could not be invoked from Explorer context menu.

New in WinRAR 5.91 (Jun 29, 2020)

  • Dialogs are centered inside of WinRAR window similarly to WinRAR 5.80 and not inside of entire screen as in WinRAR 5.90.
  • When editing an archived file with external software, extra measures are taken to reduce the probability of interfering with editor and opening its temporary files while editor still may need them.
  • "Version to extract" field in archive properties opened from Windows Explorer context menu provides the additional information about ZIP compression and encryption algorithms, such as LZMA or AES. This information was already available in WinRAR "Info" command, but missed in archive information accessible from Windows Explorer.
  • "MS DOS" and "Unix" host OS types are recognized and included for LZH archives in "Info" command. Previously the host OS field
  • was always "Unknown" for LZH archive format.
  • Files created by external editor and matching "Settings/Viewer/ Ignore modifications for" masks are never added to archive Previously WinRAR still added them if some file not matching these masks was also created or modified.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • empty file names were displayed inside of some Unix LZH archives;
  • WinRAR could not process more than 999 7z volumes in a single set;
  • if user cancelled the user account control prompt after changing "Integrate WinRAR into shell" option, a new state of this option was displayed in "Settings" dialog, even though the actual state of shell integration was not modified;
  • the main window size could be too small on the first run after clean install with no previous WinRAR version present;
  • WinRAR could stop responding after editing an archived file with external software in Windows 10 version 2004.

New in WinRAR 5.91 Beta 1 (May 31, 2020)

  • Dialogs are centered inside of WinRAR window similarly to WinRAR 5.80 and not inside of entire screen as in WinRAR 5.90.
  • When editing an archived file with external software, extra measures are taken to reduce the probability of interfering with editor and opening its temporary files while editor still may need them.
  • "Version to extract" field in archive properties opened from Windows Explorer context menu provides the additional information about ZIP compression and encryption algorithms, such as LZMA or AES. This information was already available in WinRAR "Info" command, but missed in archive information accessible from Windows Explorer.
  • "MS DOS" and "Unix" host OS types are recognized and included for LZH archives in "Info" command. Previously the host OS field was always "Unknown" for LZH archive format.
  • Files created by external editor and matching "Settings/Viewer/Ignore modifications for" masks are never added to archive. Previously WinRAR still added them if some file not matching these masks was also created or modified.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • empty file names were displayed inside of some Unix LZH archives;
  • WinRAR could not process more than 999 7z volumes in a single set;
  • if user cancelled the user account control prompt after changing "Integrate WinRAR into shell" option, a new state of this option was displayed in "Settings" dialog, even though the actual state of shell integration was not modified;
  • the main window size could be too small on the first run after clean install with no previous WinRAR version present;
  • WinRAR could stop responding after editing an archived file with external software in Windows 10 version 2004.

New in WinRAR 5.90 (Mar 30, 2020)

  • RAR compression speed is improved for CPUs with 16 and more cores.
  • "Fastest" method (-m1 command line equivalent) typically achieves a higher compression ratio for highly compressible data types when creating RAR5 archives.
  • Maximum number of utilized threads is increased from 32 to 64. Command line -mt<threads> switch accepts values from 1 to 64.
  • "Multithreading" parameter on "General" page of WinRAR settings is replaced with "Threads" input field, where you can specify the desired number of CPU threads. It can take values from 1 to maximum number of available logical CPU units.
  • WinRAR displays packed and unpacked folder sizes when browsing archive contents.
  • "Total folders" field is added to list of archive parametersdisplayed by WinRAR "Info" command. Same field is added to "Archive" page in archive properties in Windows Explorer.
  • Window including a progress bar and "Cancel" button is displayed if reading archive contents takes noticeable time. It can be useful for archive formats with slower access to contents, such as large TAR based archives like .tar.gz and tar.bz2.
  • Archiving and extraction progress windows, also as progress windows for some other commands, can be resized.
  • "Repair" performance for RAR5 archives with recovery record and without data shifts is improved. It deteriorated in WinRAR 5.80 and is now restored to original level.
  • Password prompt is not issued when performing recovery record based repair for RAR5 archives with encrypted file names. This command can be performed without providing a password.
  • If folder for converted archives in "Convert archives" command does not exist, WinRAR attempts to create it. Previous version failed to create converted archives in non-existent destination folder.
  • Added extraction support for GZIP archives with optional header checksum field.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • "Repair" command could erroneously display "Recovery record is corrupt" message when processing an archive with valid recovery
  • record. This message did not prevent further repair operation;
  • if quick open information option was set to "Do not add" in default compression profile and this profile was loaded by some command or dialog, WinRAR ignored quick open information when browsing contents of RAR archives. For example, it happened after opening archiving or password dialogs;
  • Ctrl+C "Copy" shortcut key did not work in archive comment window;
  • if "Put each file to separate archive" and "Archives in subfolders" options were set, WinRAR ignored the destination path specified in archive name field.

New in WinRAR 5.90 Beta 3 (Feb 28, 2020)

  • Bugs fixed:
  • in previous beta versions "Info" command failed to work properly for a single selected file or folder outside of archive;
  • RAR4 archives compression ratio could be very slightly lower than in WinRAR 5.80. It is restored to 5.80 level now;
  • non-English names in ZIP archives created by Windows XP integrated ZIP tool could be corrupted when modified by WinRAR.

New in WinRAR 5.90 Beta 2 (Feb 4, 2020)

  • Added extraction support for GZIP archives with optional header checksum field.
  • If non-existent path was specified as a start-up folder in WinRAR settings, previous versions displayed an empty file list. Now the current folder is used instead.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • Beta 1 could produce corrupt archives when using small
  • 128 KB - 1 MB compression dictionaries with delta or executable
  • Compression and source data size exceeding the dictionary size.

New in WinRAR 5.90 Beta 1 (Jan 29, 2020)

  • RAR compression speed is improved for CPUs with 16 and more cores.
  • "Fastest" method (-m1 command line equivalent) typically achieves a higher compression ratio for highly compressible data types when creating RAR5 archives.
  • Maximum number of utilized threads is increased from 32 to 64. Command line -mt<threads> switch accepts values from 1 to 64.
  • "Multithreading" parameter on "General" page of WinRAR settings is replaced with "Threads" input field, where you can specify the desired number of CPU threads. It can take values from 1 to maximum number of available logical CPU units.
  • WinRAR displays packed and unpacked folder sizes when browsing archive contents.
  • "Total folders" field is added to list of archive parameters displayed by WinRAR "Info" command. Same field is added to "Archive" page in archive properties in Windows Explorer.
  • Window including a progress bar and "Cancel" button is displayed if reading archive contents takes noticeable time. It can be useful for archive formats with slower access to contents, such as large TAR based archives like .tar.gz and tar.bz2.
  • Archiving and extraction progress windows, also as progress windows for some other commands, can be resized.
  • "Repair" performance for RAR5 archives with recovery record and without data shifts is improved. It deteriorated in WinRAR 5.80 and is now restored to original level.
  • Password prompt is not issued when performing recovery record based repair for RAR5 archives with encrypted file names. This command can be performed without providing a password.
  • If folder for converted archives in "Convert archives" command does not exist, WinRAR attempts to create it. Previous versions failed to create converted archives in non-existent destination folder.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • "Repair" command could erroneously display "Recovery record iscorrupt" message when processing an archive with valid recovery record. This message did not prevent further repair operation;
  • if quick open information option was set to "Do not add" in default compression profile and this profile was loaded by some command or dialog, WinRAR ignored quick open information when browsing contents of RAR archives. For example, it happened after opening archiving or password dialogs;
  • Ctrl+C "Copy" shortcut key did not work in archive comment window;
  • if "Put each file to separate archive" and "Archives in subfolders" options were set, WinRAR ignored the destination path specified in archive name field.

New in WinRAR 5.80 (Dec 11, 2019)

  • "Preserve source files last access time" option on "Time" page of archiving dialog permits to preserve the original last access time of archiving files
  • Command line -tsp switch can be used to preserve the original last access time of archiving files. It can be combined with other ts switches, like: rar a -tsc -tsp arcname files
  • It is allowed to combine several modifiers in the same -ts switch. For example, we can use -tscap instead -tsc -tsa -tsp
  • WinRAR can read default values of command line switches from rar.ini text file, which can be stored either in the same folder as WinRAR.exe or in %APPDATA%WinRAR folder. This file includes strings in following format
  • switches=<any RAR switches separated by spaces>
  • switches_<command>=<any RAR switches separated by spaces>
  • First applies switches to all and second to individual commands. For example
  • switches=-m5 -s
  • switches_x=-o+
  • Most of switches specified in rar.ini are used only in the command line mode. Some switches can be applicable both in shell and in command line modes. Previously this rar.ini format was supported only by console RAR
  • Command line -agf<default_format> switch specifies the default format string for -ag switch. It has a practical value only if placed to rar.ini configuration file or to RAR environment variable. For example, if we set RAR environment variable to -agfYYYY-MMM-DD we can use -ag without a parameter with YYYY-MMM-DD format string assumed
  • Switches -ed and -e+d can be used in archive processing commands for any combination of RAR and archive operating systems
  • In older versions RAR for Windows could not use them for Unix RAR archives also as RAR for Unix for Windows RAR archives
  • Previously "Test" command failed to check integrity of archived NTFS alternate data streams and issued "Unknown data header format" warning if size of such stream exceeded 16 MB. This limitation is removed now
  • Archiving speed for large NTFS alternate data streams on multi-core CPUs is increased
  • "Find" command:
  • when extracting encrypted files directly from "Search results" dialog, password prompt was issued for every found file even if all files belonged to same archive. Now password is requested only once per archive
  • Ctrl+A hotkey selects all files in "Search results"
  • Archive comment window:
  • previous versions did not allow to use Ctrl+W shortcut to close WinRAR when comment window had keyboard focus. Now Ctrl+W works also from comment window
  • mouse wheel is supported also for comments with ANSI Escape sequences
  • for some lenghty comments with ANSI Escape sequences last line of comment was visible only partially even after scrolling up to bottom. It is displayed comletely now
  • Maximum path length for files in 7z archives is increased up to 2048 characters. While such lengthy paths were already supported for RAR and ZIP formats, previous versions limited the path length to 260 characters for 7z archives
  • If archive or file name is too lengthy to fit to archiving or extraction progress window, it is truncated. Previously such names were truncated at the end, making the file extension invisible. This version truncates them removing the path component and symbols in the middle, but preserving beginning of file name and file extension
  • If files selected for archiving differ only by extension a proposed archive name is based on their name part. For example, archiving dialog will propose Readme.rar if we selected Readme.txt and Readme.doc Previous versions always generated the archive name based on parent folder name for several selected files
  • "Symlink" and "Hardlink" is diplayed in "Type" column for symlink and hardlink records in .tar archives. Previous versions displayed a proper type for such records only in .rar archives
  • Copying and pasting files from large archives could fail if extraction took a lot of time. This version can paste files from such archives as well, but we have to start extraction already on "Copy" command and not on "Paste" to achieve this
  • Similarly to RAR5 volumes, recovery volumes in RAR4 format use the same width of volume number field as corresponding RAR volumes While previously WinRAR could create arc.part01.rar and arc.part1.rev in RAR4 format, now both types of volumes will use "part01"
  • "Set font..." button in "Settings/File list" also changes the folder tree panel font. Previously it changed only the file list font
  • "Find files" and command line mode "i" commands:
  • a) if "Use all tables" option or "t" modifer of "i" command are used additionally to already supported ANSI, OEM and UTF-16 encodings WinRAR will search the specified string in UTF-8 files as well
  • b) better support for Unicode text strings
  • c) better performance, especially for case insensitive search
  • d) hexadecimal search output includes both text and hexadecimal representation of found matches
  • File and total progress bar is displayed when unpacking tar.bz2, tar.gz, tar.lz, tar.xz, tar.z archives. Previously only the total progress was displayed properly for tar.bz2 tar.gz and tar.z. Neither file nor total progress was displayed for tar.lz and tar.xz
  • "File list/Files/Exact sizes" option also changes the file size format in WinRAR status bar
  • Bugs fixed:
  • a) if non-existent path is specified in archive name in archiving dialog, WinRAR proposes to create such path. Previous versions could create such path in WinRAR start-up folder instead of currently displayed folder
  • b) WinRAR could crash when adding the recovery record in RAR5 format on CPUs not supporting CPUID EAX=7 command and returning random data in response. These are some CPUs from early 2000s
  • c) WinRAR failed to create archives after dragging files with right mouse button in Windows shell, dropping them to another folder selecting "Add to archive..." in context menu and enabling
  • "Put each file to separate archive" option
  • d) "winrar r *.zip" command repaired only the first ZIP archive in the set if all archives had numeric names like 1.zip, 2.zip and signatures in the beginning of archives were missing
  • e) previous WinRAR version failed to unpack folder records in archives created by RAR 1.50
  • f) in rare cases WinRAR failed to extract and reported an error for valid .gz archives produced by some compression optimization tools
  • g) progress bar in tray icon never reached 100% in high DPI mode
  • h) creation and last access time was not displayed for archived folders
  • if folder records were stored in archive after folder contents
  • i) "Skip encrypted archives" option in "Convert archives" command did not work for 7-Zip archives with headers encryption

New in WinRAR 5.80 Beta 4 (Nov 18, 2019)

  • Bugs fixed:
  • if hard link was extracted over existing hard link with same name, WinRAR could fail to properly set its file attributes;
  • turning off "Integrate WinRAR into shell" option did not remove "WinRAR archive" and "WinRAR ZIP archive" items from Windows "New" context menu;
  • extraction could hang infinitely when unpacking some corrupt ARJ archives and corrupt ZIP archives with BZIP2 compression algorithm.

New in WinRAR 5.80 Beta 3 (Oct 20, 2019)

  • "Export settings to file" command in "Options" menu saves both
  • HKEY_CURRENT_USERSOFTWAREWinRAR and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREWinRAR Registry data to Settings.reg, so user defined variables in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwareWinRARPolicy are also preserved. Previously it exported only HKEY_CURRENT_USERSOFTWAREWinRAR data.
  • Bug Fixes:
  • previous beta versions failed to unpack ZIP archives with mismatched order of local file records and central directory entries;
  • if we opened archive properies in Windows Explorer and selected some text on "Comment" page, selection was lost when moving the mouse cursor outside of properties dialog.

New in WinRAR 5.80 Beta 2 (Sep 26, 2019)

  • "File list/Files/Exact sizes" option also changes the file size format in WinRAR status bar.
  • Added support for one more variation of TAR format archives.
  • "Find files" and command line mode "i" commands:
  • If "Use all tables" option or "t" modifer of "i" command are used, additionally to already supported ANSI, OEM and UTF-16 encodings WinRAR will search the specified string in UTF-8 files as well;
  • Better support for Unicode text strings;
  • Better performance, especially for case insensitive search;
  • Hexadecimal search output includes both text and hexadecimal representation of found matches.
  • File and total progress bar is displayed when unpacking tar.bz2, tar.gz, tar.lz, tar.xz, tar.z archives:
  • Previously only the total progress was displayed properly for tar.bz2, tar.gz and tar.z. Neither file nor total progress was displayed for tar.lz and tar.xz.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • WinRAR extraction commands in Windows Explorer context menu failed if -ag switch was added to rar.ini file.

New in WinRAR 5.80 Beta 1 (Aug 30, 2019)

  • "Preserve source files last access time" option on "Time" page of archiving dialog permits to preserve the original last access time of archiving files
  • Command line -tsp switch can be used to preserve the original last access time of archiving files It can be combined with other ts switches, like: rar a -tsc -tsp arcname files
  • It is allowed to combine several modifiers in the same -ts switch For example, we can use -tscap instead -tsc -tsa -tsp
  • WinRAR can read default values of command line switches from rarini text file, which can be stored either in the same folder as WinRARexe or in %APPDATA%WinRAR folder This file includes strings in following
  • format:
  • switches=<any RAR switches separated by spaces>
  • switches_<command>=<any RAR switches separated by spaces>
  • First applies switches to all and second to individual commands
  • For example:
  • switches=-m5 -s
  • switches_x=-o+
  • Most of switches specified in rarini are used only in the command line mode Some switches can be applicable both in shell and in command line modes Previously this rarini format was supported only by console RAR
  • Command line -agf<default_format> switch specifies the default format string for -ag switch It has a practical value only if placed to rarini configuration file or to RAR environment variable
  • For example, if we set RAR environment variable to -agfYYYY-MMM-DD, we can use -ag without a parameter with YYYY-MMM-DD format string assumed
  • Switches -ed and -e+d can be used in archive processing commandsfor any combination of RAR and archive operating systems In older versions RAR for Windows could not use them for Unix RAR archives also as RAR for Unix for Windows RAR archives
  • Previously "Test" command failed to check integrity of archived NTFS alternate data streams and issued "Unknown data header format" warning if size of such stream exceeded 16 MB This limitation is removed now
  • Archiving speed for large NTFS alternate data streams on multi-core
  • CPUs is increased
  • "Find" command:
  • when extracting encrypted files directly from "Search results" dialog, password prompt was issued for every found file even if all files belonged to same archive
  • Now password is requested only once per archive;
  • Ctrl+A hotkey selects all files in "Search results"
  • Archive comment window:
  • previous versions did not allow to use Ctrl+W shortcut to close WinRAR when comment window had keyboard focus Now Ctrl+W works also from comment window;
  • mouse wheel is supported also for comments with ANSI Escape sequences;
  • for some lenghty comments with ANSI Escape sequences last line of comment was visible only partially even after scrolling up to bottom It is displayed comletely now
  • Maximum path length for files in 7z archives is increased up to characters While such lengthy paths were already supported for RAR and ZIP formats, previous versions limited the path length to 260 characters for 7z archives
  • If archive or file name is too lengthy to fit to archiving or extraction progress window, it is truncated Previously such names were truncated at the end, making the file extension invisible
  • This version truncates them removing the path component and symbols in the middle, but preserving beginning of file name and file extension
  • If files selected for archiving differ only by extension, a proposed archive name is based on their name part
  • For example, archiving dialog will propose Readmerar if we selected Readmetxt and Readmedoc
  • Previous versions always generated the archive name based on parent folder name for several selected files
  • "Symlink" and "Hardlink" is diplayed in "Type" column for symlink
  • and hardlink records in tar archives Previous versions displayed
  • a proper type for such records only in rar archives
  • Copying and pasting files from large archives could fail if extraction took a lot of time This version can paste files from such archives as well, but we have to start extraction already on "Copy" command and not on "Paste" to achieve this
  • Similarly to RAR5 volumes, recovery volumes in RAR4 format use the same width of volume number field as corresponding RAR volumes While previously WinRAR could create arcpart01rar and arcpart1rev in RAR4 format, now both types of volumes will use "part01"
  • "Set font" button in "Settings/File list" also changes the folder tree panel font Previously it changed only the file list font
  • Bugs fixed:
  • if non-existent path is specified in archive name in archiving dialog, WinRAR proposes to create such path Previous versions could create such path in WinRAR start-up folder instead of currently displayed folder;
  • WinRAR could crash when adding the recovery record in RAR5 format on CPUs not supporting CPUID EAX=7 command and returning random data in response These are some CPUs from early 2000s;
  • WinRAR failed to create archives after dragging files with right mouse button in Windows shell, dropping them to another folder, selecting "Add to archive" in context menu and enabling "Put each file to separate archive" option;
  • "winrar r *zip" command repaired only the first ZIP archive in the set if all archives had numeric names like 1zip, 2zip and signatures in the beginning of archives were missing;
  • previous WinRAR version failed to unpack folder records in archives created by RAR 150;
  • in rare cases WinRAR failed to extract and reported an error for valid gz archives produced by some compression optimization tools;
  • progress bar in tray icon never reached 100% in high DPI mode;
  • creation and last access time was not displayed for archived folders if folder records were stored in archive after folder contents;
  • "Skip encrypted archives" option in "Convert archives" command did not work for 7-Zip archives with headers encryption

New in WinRAR 5.71 (Apr 29, 2019)

  • "Convert archives" command:
  • improved performance when processing a lot of small archives in Windows 10;
  • fixed memory leaks which could lead to excessive memory use when converting to ZIP format.
  • Corrupt ZIP archive processing:
  • "Repair" command replaces packed and unpacked file sizes stored in local file header with sizes from central directory if local header sizes look invalid;
  • file extraction is stopped at unpacked size stored in ZIP headers even if available packed data allows further extraction.
  • It is done to prevent unexpected hard drive space usage.
  • Ctrl+C allows to abort RAR "l" command quickly. In previous versions it could take several seconds until list command stopped.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • if "Save archive name" and "Add to context menu" options were set in compression profile parameters and profile was invoked from Explorer context menu, WinRAR proposed an automatically generated archive name instead of name saved in profile.
  • WinRAR displayed an unneeded pair of round brackets in "Archive" column of "Diagnostic messages" window for system error messages;
  • "Extract to folder" Windows Explorer context menu command could fail to unpack ZIP archives if their names included a numeric part followed by .zip extension, arbitrary data was present before the first file record and "Remove redundant folders from extraction path" WinRAR option was switched on;
  • in "RAR x -x<mask> arcname" command, parent folders of files matching the specified mask also were excluded from extracting;
  • "Find" command returned the current folder own name additionally to its contents for "Current folder" search area if folder name matched "File names to find" mask;
  • if "Find in files" and "Find in archives" are both enabled, "Find" command did not match an archive name itself against "File names to find" mask after searching inside of archive. So it did not display archive names for masks like *.rar and applied this mask only to files inside of archives;
  • when running an executable directly from archive, WinRAR 5.70 did not set a temporary folder with unpacked files as current. So executables attempting to access other archived files in current folder could fail to work;
  • WinRAR could be inaccessible for few seconds after closing an archived file opened in internal viewer in Windows 10;
  • dragging a file to subfolder of ZIP archive with "Store full paths" option enabled produced invalid pathnames consisting of repeated subfolder name. Same invalid pathnames were produced if adding files to ZIP archive with -ap<folder> -ep2 switches.

New in WinRAR 5.71 Beta 2 (Apr 16, 2019)

  • Master password processing:
  • If password stored in compression profile is protected with master password and user entered a wrong master password after choosing a profile, "the specified password is incorrect" message is displayed before repeating request;
  • If -cp<profile_name> switch is used, profile stores a password protected with master password and user cancels the master password prompt, the entire archiving command is cancelled. Previous versions continued archiving without a password.
  • When repairing archives in command line, it is allowed to specify a name of existing destination folder also without trailing path separator. Previously "r" command accepted only "destfolder" format.
  • Path separator is still required if destination folder does not exist.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • WinRAR could crash when attempting to display some types of archive comments in GUI shell, resulting in a denial of service;
  • Current archive name was not updated in hint message associated with tray icon when repairing several archives in background.

New in WinRAR 5.71 Beta 1 (Apr 2, 2019)

  • "Convert archives" command:
  • improved performance when processing a lot of small archives in Windows 10;
  • fixed memory leaks which could lead to excessive memory use when converting to ZIP format.
  • Corrupt ZIP archive processing:
  • "Repair" command replaces packed and unpacked file sizes stored in local file header with sizes from central directory if local header sizes look invalid;
  • file extraction is stopped at unpacked size stored in ZIP headers even if available packed data allows further extraction. It is done to prevent unexpected hard drive space usage.
  • Ctrl+C allows to abort RAR "l" command quickly. In previous versions it could take several seconds until list command stopped.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • if "Save archive name" and "Add to context menu" options were set in compression profile parameters and profile was invoked from Explorer context menu, WinRAR proposed an automatically generated archive name instead of name saved in profile
  • WinRAR displayed an unneeded pair of round brackets in "Archive" column of "Diagnostic messages" window for system error messages;
  • "Extract to folder" Windows Explorer context menu command could fail to unpack ZIP archives if their names included a numeric part followed by .zip extension, arbitrary data was present before the first file record and "Remove redundant folders from extraction path" WinRAR option was switched on;
  • in "RAR x -x<mask> arcname" command, parent folders of files matching the specified mask also were excluded from extracting;
  • "Find" command returned the current folder own name additionally to its contents for "Current folder" search area if folder name matched "File names to find" mask
  • if "Find in files" and "Find in archives" are both enabled, "Find" command did not match an archive name itself against "File names to find" mask after searching inside of archive. So it did not display archive names for masks like *.rar and applied this mask only to files inside of archives;
  • when running an executable directly from archive, WinRAR 5.70 did not set a temporary folder with unpacked files as current. So executables attempting to access other archived files in current folder could fail to work;
  • WinRAR could be inaccessilbe for few seconds after closing an archived file opened in internal viewer in Windows 10;
  • dragging a file to subfolder of ZIP archive with "Store full paths" option enabled produced invalid pathnames consisting of repeated subfolder name. Same invalid pathnames were produced if adding files to ZIP archive with -ap<folder> -ep2 switches.

New in WinRAR 5.70 (Feb 26, 2019)

  • "Files to process" option on "Time" page of archiving dialog allows to choose files based on modification, creation or last access file time. Previously it was possible for modification time only.
  • Command line -ta, -tb, -tn, -to switches accept 'm', 'c' and 'a' modifiers after the switch name. So file time conditions can include not only the file modification time as in previous versions, but also creation and last access time. Such switch can include multiple modifiers to set the same date for all specified times. For example, -tamc20190215 will process files modified and created after 2019-02-15.
  • New 'o' modifier permits to switch from AND to OR logic, so -tamco20190215 includes files modified or created after 2019-02-15. It is also allowed to specify several time filtering switches with different dates in the same command line, like:-taco20190201 -tbmo20190210. Switches -ta and -tn also include files matching the specified date exactly. Switches -tb and -to exclude such files.
  • WinRAR file list can display creation and last access file times if they are available. Creation and last access columns are disabled by default and can be enabled in "Select file list columns" dialog. This dialog is opened after right clicking on file list column headers or after pressing "File list/Files/Columns..." button in WinRAR settings.
  • "Double extensions for archives" and "Archives in subfolders" options on "Files" page of archiving dialog modify behavior of "Put each file to separate archive" option. You can switch between archive names in filename.ext.rar and filename.rar style with "Double extensions for archives". You can create a separate archive for every file in selected subfolders or store the entire contents of every selected folder in separate archive depending on the state of "Archives in subfolders" option.
  • New -ad1 switch can be used when unpacking multiple archives recursively, such as 'rar x -r -ad1 arc*.rar'. It creates a separate folder for files unpacked from each archive, but unlike already existing -ad switch, it creates such folders in each archive folder.
  • If context menu "Extract each archive to separate folder" is applied to archives from different folders in Windows Explorer "Search results", subfolders with unpacked files are created in each archive folder. Previous versions created them all in a folder of right clicked archive.
  • New "File list/List style/Checkboxes" option in WinRAR settings allows to use checkboxes to select file list items.
  • New "File list/Files/Exact sizes" option in WinRAR settings. If this option is on, file sizes are always displayed in bytes. If it is off, sizes are rounded up and use units such as KB or MB. Smaller files can be still displayed in bytes.
  • If several console RAR are started with -ioff switch, PC is turned off by RAR copy finished last. Previously this switch was processed by first finished copy.
  • Read and write buffer size is increased for .iso files. It can help to improve .iso extraction performance in some cases, such as for network drives.
  • If "Delete archive" option in extraction dialog is applied to a set of RAR and REV volumes in volname.part# format, WinRAR will delete REV volumes as well. Previously only RAR volumes were deleted keeping REV files intact.
  • If "Delete archive" option in extraction dialog is applied to set of ZIP volumes with .zip.001, .zip.002, .zip.003 extensions, WinRAR will delete all ZIP volumes. Previously only .zip.001 volume was deleted for such volume naming scheme.
  • If we unpack arcname.rar using "Extract to arcname" Explorer context menu command and "arcname" file already exists, WinRAR shell extension will propose "Extract to arcname~1" instead. Previously this context menu command attempted to create a folder with same name as already existing file and failed.
  • If we pack a shortcut file with .lnk extension from Explorer context menu, .lnk file itself is added to archive. Previous versions added .lnk file target instead of .lnk file.
  • Windows does not allow executables exceeding 4 GB, so WinRAR issues an error immediately when attempting to create 4 GB or larger RAR SFX volumes. Previously WinRAR issued such error only after creating the first RAR volume.
  • Total extraction progress is displayed for 7z multivolume archives. Accuracy of 7z total extraction progress is improved.
  • "Find" command "Disks and folders" drop down list has been renamed to "Search area". Additionally to already existing choices, it includes a new "Selected items" option restricting search to files and folders selected in WinRAR file list.
  • "Find" command displays the number of found items in status bar.
  • "Diagnostic messages" window displays archive names in a separate column to provide the better message visibility for lengthy archive names.
  • Switch -isnd[-] in command line WinRAR mode allows to override "Enable sound" option in WinRAR settings. Use -isnd to turn sound notifications on and -isnd- to turn them off.
  • Nadav Grossman from Check Point Software Technologies informed us about a security vulnerability in UNACEV2.DLL library. Aforementioned vulnerability makes possible to create files in arbitrary folders inside or outside of destination folder when unpacking ACE archives. WinRAR used this third party library to unpack ACE archives. UNACEV2.DLL had not been updated since 2005 and we do not have access to its source code. So we decided to drop ACE archive format support to protect security of WinRAR users. We are thankful to Check Point Software Technologies for reporting this issue.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • console RAR mixed up source and destination file sizes and times in the overwrite prompt when updating a file in RAR archive with -o switch;
  • dragging files from 32-bit applications to 64-bit WinRAR window did not work;
  • WinRAR Shift+Del command applied to a folder could fail to delete some its subfolders. This command is used to delete files and folders permanently instead of moving them to Recycle Bin;
  • folder tree panel could not change folders if archived pathnames started from path separator, such as in archives created by tar tool with --absolute-names option;
  • if relative "Path=.somefolder" was specified in SFX comment and SFX archive needed to elevate privileges when extracting, it created 'somefoldersomefolder' instead of 'somefolder';
  • commands modifying an existing RAR4 volume reset the volume number field to 1. While it did not affect extraction, WinRAR displayed a wrong volume number for such volumes;
  • fixed a crash when reading a comment from a corrupt RAR file;
  • toolbar in "Find" command "Search results" window was not adjusted to different toolbar icon sizes properly.

New in WinRAR 5.70 Beta 1 (Jan 28, 2019)

  • "Files to process" option on "Time" page of archiving dialog allows to choose files based on modification, creation or last access file time. Previously it was possible for modification time only.
  • Command line -ta, -tb, -tn, -to switches accept 'm', 'c' and 'a' modifiers after the switch name. So file time conditions can include not only the file modification time as in previous versions, but also creation and last access time.
  • WinRAR file list can display creation and last access file times if they are available. Creation and last access columns are disabled by default and can be enabled in "Select file list columns" dialog. This dialog is opened after right clicking on file list column headers or after pressing "File list/Files/Columns..." button in WinRAR settings.
  • "Double extensions for archives" and "Archives in subfolders" options on "Files" page of archiving dialog modify behavior of "Put each file to separate archive" option.
  • You can switch between archive names in filename.ext.rar and filename.rar style with "Double extensions for archives".
  • You can create a separate archive for every file in selected subfolders or store the entire contents of every selected folder in separate archive depending on the state of "Archives in subfolders" option.
  • New -ad1 switch can be used when unpacking multiple archives recursively, such as 'rar x -r -ad1 arc*.rar'. It creates a separate folder for files unpacked from each archive, but unlike already existing -ad switch, it creates such folders in each archive folder.
  • If context menu "Extract each archive to separate folder" is applied to archives from different folders in Windows Explorer "Search results", subfolders with unpacked files are created in each archive folder. Previous versions created them all in a folder of right clicked archive.
  • New "File list/List style/Checkboxes" option in WinRAR settings allows to use checkboxes to select file list items.
  • New "File list/Files/Exact sizes" option in WinRAR settings.
  • If this option is on, file sizes are always displayed in bytes. If it is off, sizes are rounded up and use units such as KB or MB. Smaller files can be still displayed in bytes.
  • If several console RAR are started with -ioff switch, PC is turned off by RAR copy finished last. Previously this switch was processed by first finished copy.
  • Read and write buffer size is increased for .iso files. It can help to improve .iso extraction performance in some cases, such as for network drives.
  • If "Delete archive" option in extraction dialog is applied to a set of RAR and REV volumes in volname.part# format, WinRAR will delete REV volumes as well. Previously only RAR volumes were deleted keeping REV files intact.
  • If "Delete archive" option in extraction dialog is applied to set of ZIP volumes with .zip.001, .zip.002, .zip.003 extensions, WinRAR will delete all ZIP volumes. Previously only .zip.001 volume was deleted for such volume naming scheme.
  • If we unpack arcname.rar using "Extract to arcname" Explorer context menu command and "arcname" file already exists, WinRAR shell extension will propose "Extract to arcname~1" instead. Previously this context menu command attempted to create a folder with same name as already existing file and failed.
  • If we pack a shortcut file with .lnk extension from Explorer context menu, .lnk file itself is added to archive. Previous versions added .lnk file target instead of .lnk file.
  • Windows does not allow executables exceeding 4 GB, so WinRAR issues an error immediately when attempting to create 4 GB or larger RAR SFX volumes. Previously WinRAR issued such error only after creating the first RAR volume.
  • Total extraction progress is displayed for 7z multivolume archives. Accuracy of 7z total extraction progress is improved.
  • Nadav Grossman from Check Point Software Technologies informed us about a security vulnerability in UNACEV2.DLL library. Aforementioned vulnerability makes possible to create files in arbitrary folders inside or outside of destination folder when unpacking ACE archives.
  • WinRAR used this third party library to unpack ACE archives. UNACEV2.DLL had not been updated since 2005 and we do not have access to its source code. So we decided to drop ACE archive format support to protect security of WinRAR users.
  • We are thankful to Check Point Software Technologies for reporting this issue.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • console RAR mixed up source and destination file sizes and times in the overwrite prompt when updating a file in RAR archive with -o switch;
  • dragging files from 32-bit applications to 64-bit WinRAR window did not work;
  • WinRAR Shift+Del command applied to a folder could fail to delete some its subfolders. This command is used to delete files and folders permanently instead of moving them to Recycle Bin;
  • folder tree panel could not change folders if archived pathnames started from path separator, such as in archives created by tar tool with --absolute-names option;
  • if relative "Path=.somefolder" was specified in SFX comment and SFX archive needed to elevate privileges when extracting, it created 'somefoldersomefolder' instead of 'somefolder';
  • commands modifying an existing RAR4 volume reset the volume number field to 1. While it did not affect extraction, WinRAR displayed a wrong volume number for such volumes;
  • fixed a crash when reading a comment from a corrupt RAR file;
  • toolbar in "Find" command "Search results" window was not adjusted to different toolbar icon sizes properly.

New in WinRAR 5.61 (Oct 1, 2018)

  • "Delete archive" extraction option deletes all volumes even if user
  • Started extraction from non-first RAR volume, but first volume
  • Is present and all files are unpacked successfully In such case
  • Previous versions ignored "Delete archive" even if WinRAR was able
  • To locate the first volume and process the volume set from beginning
  • Compression ratio bar is not displayed on "Archive" page of
  • Explorer file properties for archives with encrypted file names
  • WinRAR cannot reliably calculate it for such archives without
  • A password and previously it just displayed 0% here
  • Bugs fixed:
  • WinRAR displayed "The specified password is incorrect" message
  • Infinitely when attempting to open RAR5 archive with encrypted
  • File names if wrong global password was set with Ctrl+P;
  • Memory management bug in the password dialog could lead to
  • Access to already freed memory followed by crash
  • This issue may be also associated with security risks;
  • Fixed crashes in corrupt RAR, ACE and LZH archives
  • This issue may be also associated with security risks;
  • While starting, WinRAR could cause a brief flickering in menu bars
  • Of few other applications;
  • WinRAR "Find" command matched "String to find" against all
  • Archived files ignoring "File names to find" mask when searching
  • In CAB archives;
  • SFX module "License" command did not set a title of license window;
  • If "Start-up folder" in WinRAR settings included the trailing
  • Backslash, WinRAR ignored first "Up one level" command

New in WinRAR 5.61 (Sep 3, 2018)

  • "Delete archive" extraction option deletes all volumes even if user started extraction from non-first RAR volume, but first volume
  • is present and all files are unpacked successfully. In such case
  • previous versions ignored "Delete archive" even if WinRAR was able
  • to locate the first volume and process the volume set from beginning.
  • Compression ratio bar is not displayed on "Archive" page of
  • Explorer file properties for archives with encrypted file names.
  • WinRAR cannot reliably calculate it for such archives without
  • a password and previously it just displayed 0% here.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • WinRAR displayed "The specified password is incorrect" message
  • infinitely when attempting to open RAR5 archive with encrypted
  • file names if wrong global password was set with Ctrl+P;
  • memory management bug in the password dialog could lead to
  • access to already freed memory followed by crash.
  • This issue may be also associated with security risks;
  • fixed a crash when processing corrupt RAR archives.
  • This issue may be also associated with security risks;
  • while starting, WinRAR could cause a brief flickering in menu bars
  • of few other applications;
  • WinRAR "Find" command matched "String to find" against all
  • archived files ignoring "File names to find" mask when searching
  • in CAB archives;
  • SFX module "License" command did not set a title of license window;
  • if "Start-up folder" in WinRAR settings included the trailing
  • backslash, WinRAR ignored first "Up one level" command.

New in WinRAR 5.60 (Jun 26, 2018)

  • We updated WinRAR graphics.
  • We are grateful to http://weirdsgn.com and http://icondesignlab.com designers participated in this endeavor and proud to announce that WinRAR uses the new icon set prepared by Aditya Nugraha Putra from http://weirdsgn.com.
  • Previous WinRAR icons are available as interface theme here: https://rarlab.com/themes/WinRAR_Classic_48x36.theme.rar
  • "Repair" command efficiency is improved for recovery record protected RAR5 archives. Now it can detect deletions and insertions of unlimited size also as shuffled data including data taken from several recovery record protected archives and merged into a single file in arbitrary order.
  • "Turn PC off when done" archiving option is changed to "When done" drop down list, so you can turn off, hibernate or sleep your PC after completing archiving.
  • Use -ioff or -ioff1 command line switch to turn PC off, -ioff2 to hibernate and -ioff3 to sleep your PC after completing an operation.
  • If encoding of comment file specified in -z<file> switch is not defined with -sc switch, RAR attempts to detect UTF-8, UTF-16LE and UTF-16BE encodings based on the byte order mask and data validity tests.
  • WinRAR attempts to detect ANSI, OEM and UTF-8 encodings of ZIP archive comments automatically.
  • "Internal viewer/Use DOS encoding" option in "Settings/Viewer" is replaced with "Internal viewer/Autodetect encoding". If "Autodetect encoding" is enabled, the internal viewer attempts to detect ANSI (Windows), OEM (DOS), UTF-8 and UTF-16 encodings.
  • Normally Windows Explorer context menu contains only extraction commands if single archive has been right clicked. You can override this by specifying one or more space separated masks in "Always display archiving items for" option in Settings/Integration/Context menu items", so archiving commands are always displayed for these file types even if file was recognized as archive. If you wish both archiving and extraction commands present for all archives, place "*" here.
  • SFX module "SetupCode" command accepts an optional integer parameter allowing to control mapping of setup program and SFX own error codes. It is also accessible as "Exit code adjustment" option in "Advanced SFX options/Setup" dialog.
  • New "Show more information" WinRAR command line -im switch. It can be used with "t" command to issue a message also in case of successful archive test result. Without this switch "t" command completes silently if no errors are found.
  • This switch is applicable only to WinRAR.exe and ignored by console RAR.exe.
  • If a wrong password is entered when unpacking an encrypted file in ZIP archive, WinRAR proposes to enter a valid password for same file again instead of aborting extraction.
  • If a wrong password is entered when opening or unpacking RAR archive with encrypted file names, WinRAR proposes to enter a valid password again instead of aborting the operation. Previous versions already did so for RAR archives with encrypted file data, but aborted for archives with file name encryption.
  • WinRAR recognizes GZIP files with arbitrary data preceding an actual GZIP archive, such as .scexe firmware files.
  • @filelist parameter can be specified in "Files to add" field of archiving dialog. In this case WinRAR will attempt the list of archiving files from 'filelist' file, which should be the plain text, one file name per line.
  • Info dialog:
  • Compression ratio graph is updated;
  • "Names and data" is displayed in "Encryption" field for archives with encrypted file names.
  • Full archive name is displayed if mouse pointer is placed over an archive name in the operation progress window. It can be useful if archive name is lengthy and does not fit to available window space.
  • If -ts1 switch is used with -u or -f, file time comparison is performed with 1 second precision. Previosuly in such case we could wrongly treat an adding file as newer than archived just because we compared the high precision adding file time against the low precision archived file time.
  • "Update" and "Fresh" commands ('u' and 'f' in the command line mode) quit immediately if no files are to be updated. Previously they created a temporary archive before quitting when updating archives with recovery record or quick open information.
  • Prompt is issued after creating 500 volumes from WinRAR GUI shell, so user can continue or quit further archiving. It is done to prevent creating many thousands of volumes in case of wrongly entered volume size.
  • WinRAR uses megabytes instead of bytes as default units for volume size field in the archiving dialog.
  • "Repair" command issues "Recovery record is corrupt" message after repairing RAR5 archive containing a broken recovery record. Previously such message was issued only by "Test" command and "Repair" handled most of recovery record damages silently.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • Fixed potential security issues when processing corrupt RAR archives;
  • Non-English characters in TAR files with PAX extended headers were not displayed correctly;
  • "rar x arcname.rar .." command unpacked files to current folder instead of its parent;
  • Pasting files from Windows Explorer to archive opened in WinRAR blocked further copy and paste operations in Explorer until archiving was finished;
  • SFX module issued "The specified password is incorrect" message infinitely not prompting for correct password once a wrong password was entered;
  • Folders time was always set when extracting ZIP archives even if "File time" options in the extraction dialog were turned off;
  • If "Delete archive: Always" was selected when extracting and user pressed "Cancel" in the file overwrite or password prompt, an archive could be deleted even after cancelling extraction for .zip and .7z formats.

New in WinRAR 5.60 Beta 5 (Jun 4, 2018)

  • WinRAR failed to unpack ZIP archives created by RAR for Android and encrypted with non-English passwords. Fixed now. This fix should also work for archives created by other ZIP tools and utilizing UTF-8 for internal password encoding.
  • Tree panel height was not adjusted after changing the toolbar button size until restarting WinRAR.
  • If hard link is extracted without extracting the link target, WinRAR issues a warning and sets the error code after skipping the link extraction. Previously it was skipped silently.

New in WinRAR 5.60 Beta 3 (Apr 21, 2018)

  • "Put each file to separate archive" option always appends the archive format extension to archiving file extension. So filename.ext is archived to filename.ext.rar instead of filename.rar.
  • Thicker borders of tree panel and comment window to make their resizing easier.

New in WinRAR 5.60 Beta 2 (Mar 31, 2018)

  • "Extra large buttons" option in "Settings/General" selects 64x48 toolbar buttons.
  • "Restart" option is added to "Advanced/When done" list in archiving dialog.
  • -ioff4 switch can be used to restart PC after completing archiving or extraction.
  • Since it may take a lot of time to display contents of large tar.bz2 and tar.gz files, WinRAR displays the percent complete in the status bar while opening such archives.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • previous beta did not restore the toolbar layout changed by user.

New in WinRAR 5.60 Beta 1 (Mar 11, 2018)

  • We updated WinRAR graphics:
  • We are grateful to http://weirdsgn.com and http://icondesignlab.com designers participated in this endeavor and proud to announce that WinRAR uses the new icon set prepared by Aditya Nugraha Putra from http://weirdsgn.com. Previous WinRAR icons are available as interface theme here: https://rarlab.com/themes/WinRAR_Classic_48x36.theme.rar
  • "Repair" command efficiency is improved for recovery record protected RAR5 archives. Now it can detect deletions and insertions of unlimited size also as shuffled data including data taken from several recovery record protected archives and merged into a single file in arbitrary order.
  • "Turn PC off when done" archiving option is changed to "When done" drop down list, so you can turn off, hibernate or sleep your PC after completing archiving.
  • Use -ioff or -ioff1 command line switch to turn PC off, ioff2 to hibernate and -ioff3 to sleep your PC after completing an operation.
  • If encoding of comment file specified in -z<file> switch is not defined with -sc switch, RAR attempts to detect UTF-8, UTF-16LE and UTF-16BE encodings based on the byte order mask and data validity tests.
  • WinRAR attempts to detect ANSI, OEM and UTF-8 encodings of ZIP archive comments automatically.
  • "Internal viewer/Use DOS encoding" option in "Settings/Viewer" is replaced with "Internal viewer/Autodetect encoding". If "Autodetect encoding" is enabled, the internal viewer attempts to detect ANSI (Windows), OEM (DOS), UTF-8 and UTF-16 encodings.
  • Normally Windows Explorer context menu contains only extraction commands if single archive has been right clicked. You can override this by specifying one or more space separated masks in "Always display archiving items for" option in Settings/Integration/Context menu items", so archiving commands are always displayed for these file types even if file was recognized as archive. If you wish both archiving and extraction commands present for all archives, place "*" here.
  • SFX module "SetupCode" command accepts an optional integer parameter allowing to control mapping of setup program and SFX own error codes. It is also accessible as "Exit code adjustment" option in "Advanced SFX options/Setup" dialog.
  • New "Show more information" WinRAR command line -im switch. It can be used with "t" command to issue a message also in case of successful archive test result. Without this switch "t" command completes silently if no errors are found. This switch is applicable only to WinRAR.exe and ignored by console RAR.exe.
  • If a wrong password is entered when unpacking an encrypted file in ZIP archive, WinRAR proposes to enter a valid password for same file again instead of aborting extraction.
  • If a wrong password is entered when opening or unpacking RAR archive with encrypted file names, WinRAR proposes to enter a valid password again instead of aborting the operation. Previous versions already did so for RAR archives with encrypted file data, but aborted for archives with file name encryption.
  • WinRAR recognizes GZIP files with arbitrary data preceding an actual GZIP archive, such as .scexe firmware files.
  • @filelist parameter can be specified in "Files to add" field of archiving dialog. In this case WinRAR will attempt the list of archiving files from 'filelist' file, which should be the plain text, one file name per line.
  • Info dialog: compression ratio graph is updated;
  • Info dialog: "Names and data" is displayed in "Encryption" field for archives with encrypted file names.
  • Full archive name is displayed if mouse pointer is placed over an archive name in the operation progress window. It can be useful if archive name is lengthy and does not fit to available window space.
  • If -ts1 switch is used with -u or -f, file time comparison is performed with 1 second precision. Previosuly in such case we could wrongly treat an adding file as newer than archived just because we compared the high precision adding file time against the low precision archived file time.
  • "Update" and "Fresh" commands ('u' and 'f' in the command line mode) quit immediately if no files are to be updated. Previously they created a temporary archive before quitting when updating archives with recovery record or quick open information.
  • Prompt is issued after creating 500 volumes from WinRAR GUI shell, so user can continue or quit further archiving. It is done to prevent creating many thousands of volumes in case of wrongly entered volume size.
  • WinRAR uses megabytes instead of bytes as default units for volume size field in the archiving dialog.
  • "Repair" command issues "Recovery record is corrupt" message after repairing RAR5 archive containing a broken recovery record. Previously such message was issued only by "Test" command and "Repair" handled most of recovery record damages silently.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • fixed potential security issues when processing corrupt RAR archives;
  • non-English characters in TAR files with PAX extended headers were not displayed correctly;
  • "rar x arcname.rar .." command unpacked files to current folder instead of its parent;
  • pasting files from Windows Explorer to archive opened in WinRAR blocked further copy and paste operations in Explorer until archiving was finished;
  • SFX module issued "The specified password is incorrect" message infinitely not prompting for correct password once a wrong password was entered;
  • folders time was always set when extracting ZIP archives even if "File time" options in the extraction dialog were turned off;
  • if "Delete mode: Always" was selected when extracting and user pressed "Cancel" in the file overwrite or password prompt, an archive could be deleted even after cancelling extraction for .zip and .7z formats.

New in WinRAR 5.50 (Aug 14, 2017)

  • WinRAR and command line RAR use RAR 5.0 archive format by default. You can change it to RAR 4.x compatible format with "RAR4" option in archiving dialog or -ma4 command line switch. If you prefer RAR 4.x format by default, use "Create default..." button on "Compression" page of WinRAR settings and set "RAR4" in the displayed dialog. This change affects only new clean installs. If you already saved RAR format in the default compression profile in previous versions, WinRAR respects stored settings.
  • Use "Set master password" button in "Organize passwords" dialog to encrypt saved password records and protect them from unauthorized access. If saved passwords are protected with master password, you need to enter the master password and press "OK" in password prompt to access them. If entered password does not match the master password, it is treated as a usual password for archive operations. Once entered, the master password is valid until WinRAR is closed. Close WinRAR and open it again after specifying the master password if you wish to see how protection works. Enter a valid and then empty master password to remove encryption from previously protected password records. This WinRAR version uses a new data format for password organizer, so passwords stored in "Organize passwords" dialog are not readable by older versions. It does not affect archive encryption formats and encrypted archives are compatible with previous WinRAR version. Organizer data is converted to a new format only when you save it and not immediately after installing WinRAR.
  • Prompt proposing to set the master password is displayed when storing a password in compression profile. You can enter the master password to encrypt password data stored in Registry and protect it from unauthorized access. You will need to enter the master password in password prompt dialog to access such compression profile after that. Once entered, the master password is valid until WinRAR is closed. Close WinRAR and open it again after specifying the master password
  • if you wish to see how protection works.
  • By default, WinRAR uses AES-256 in CTR mode to encrypt ZIP archives. While AES-256 is significantly more secure than ZIP 2.0 legacy encryption algorithm, it can be incompatible with some older unzip software. If compatibility with such tools is required, you can enable "ZIP legacy encryption" option in the password dialog or use -mezl switch in the command line mode.
  • Added extraction support for .LZ archives created by Lzip compressor.
  • Modern TAR tools can store high precision file times, lengthy file names and large file sizes in special PAX extended headers inside of TAR archive. Now WinRAR supports such PAX headers and uses them when extracting TAR archives.
  • New "Store modification time" option on "Time" page of archiving dialog can be used to prohibit storing the file modification time in RAR 5.x archives. Former "High precision modification time" option is replaced by "High precision time format".
  • New "Full paths in title bar" option in "Settings/General" dialog. If enabled, the full path of currently opened folder or archive is displayed in WinRAR title bar.
  • New "File types to open as archives first" option in "Settings/Compression". Here you can define how Enter or double click on a file with non-archive extension and archive contents should be processed in WinRAR file list in file management mode. Examples of such files are .docx or self-extracting exe archives. You can instruct WinRAR either to open such files as archives first or to execute or open them in associated programs. Default settings are to open self-extracting exe and to run other types of archives with non-archive extension. Regardless of these options, you can always open any such archive file by pressing Ctrl+PgDn on its name in WinRAR file list. Default folders for archives and extracted files are moved from "Settings/Compression" to "Settings/Paths".
  • New "Copy full names to clipboard" command in "File" menu places full names of selected files to clipboard.
  • Changes in the context menu displayed when right clicking the file list in WinRAR:
  • several commands, which are also present on the toolbar or in main menu, such as "View" and "Repair", are removed
  • from this context menu;
  • "Copy full names to clipboard" command is added;
  • "Run" for executables, "Open in associated application" for associated files and "Show archive contents" for archives are added. They allow to choose a way to process SFX archives and archive files with non-archive extensions. These items are present only in the file management mode and are not available inside of archives.
  • LZ and ZIPX are added to list of associations in Settings/Integration dialog.
  • LZ and ZIPX extensions are added to default list of formats for ms switch ("Specify file types to store") invoked without parameters.
  • You can specify 'f' charset value in -sc switch to use UTF-8 encoding. For example: rar a -scfl arcname @filelist.txt to read contents of filelist.txt as UTF-8 text.
  • RAR "lt" and "vt" commands display file times with nanosecond precision. Such precision is used in RAR5 archives created by RAR/Unix 5.50 and newer. Archives created by WinRAR have 100ns file time precision.
  • Only '+', '-' and '1' precision modifiers are supported in -ts switch now. Use '+' to store the file time with maximum precision, '-' to omit the file time and '1' to store it with 1 second precision. Intermediate precision modes previously defined with '2' and '3' modifiers are not available in RAR 5.0 archive format and ignored by -ts switch.
  • If a wrong password is entered when unpacking an encrypted file in RAR5 archive, WinRAR proposes to enter a valid password for same file again instead of aborting extraction.
  • File path information is displayed if mouse pointer is placed over a name of archiving file in the operation progress window.
  • Name of currently active compression profile is displayed in the archiving dialog above "Profiles..." button.
  • If "Find" command is invoked from inside of archive subfolder, "File names to find" will include the path to this subfolder. So "Find" will search only starting from this subfolder.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • fixed crashes and security vulnerability when unpacking corrupt RAR archives;
  • WinRAR failed to unpack files in ZIP archives compressed with XZ algorithm and encrypted with AES;
  • if "Windows progress bars" option in WinRAR settings was turned off and "Put each file to separate archive" archiving mode was used, "gold" part of total progress bar did not display the compressed data ratio correctly;
  • SFX archive extraction progress was incorrect in case of multivolume SFX archive with total volume size exceeding 4 GB;
  • if archived folder name included trailing spaces, if user selected and extracted some folders in non-root archive folder and if "Allow potentially incompatible names" extraction option was turned off, WinRAR could lose one or more leading characters in extracted folder name;
  • if only creation or only last access file time was stored in RAR5 archive with 1 second precision, such as with -ma5 -tsm- -tsa1 switches, this stored time was ignored when extracting.

New in WinRAR 5.50 Beta 6 (Jul 25, 2017)

  • File association option for JAR files is off by default in WinRAR installer unless you enabled it earlier in previous WinRAR versions. You need to enable this option manually if you wish to associate WinRAR with *.jar.
  • Unless "Allow absolute paths in symbolic links" extraction dialog option or -ola command line switch are specified, WinRAR does not allow to extract symbolic links with ".." in target if any of link path components is an existing symbolic link itself. It is done to prevent bypassing WinRAR security checks with chains from several symbolic links.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • If "Add" command was used from inside of archive opened in WinRAR interface, "file not found" error could be issued for files which pathnames included spaces;
  • Fixed crashes when unpacking corrupt RAR archives;
  • "rar a arc. filename" command created "arc." archive with trailing dot instead of expected "arc" without any extension;
  • "New folder" button in extraction dialog selected a parent of newly created folder instead of such folder itself;
  • "Checksum error" could be mistakenly reported for some valid GZIP archives.

New in WinRAR 5.50 Beta 5 (Jul 3, 2017)

  • If it takes too much time to locate a destination path in extraction dialog folder tree, automatic search performed as user enters the path is cancelled. Lengthy search in large folders could interfere with user input in this dialog.
  • You can still force WinRAR to select the entered destination path in extraction dialog with "Display" button.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • The keyboard focus was not returned to "Settings/File list" dialog page after selecting the file list font.

New in WinRAR 5.50 Beta 4 (Jun 16, 2017)

  • Bugs fixed:
  • Fixed a crash and security vulnerability when unpacking corrupt RAR4 archives;
  • "Extract to a specified folder" command was missing in context menu in WinRAR file list when right clicking an archive.

New in WinRAR 5.50 Beta 3 (May 23, 2017)

  • Added support for Unix extended timestamp extra field (0x5455 extra field tag) in ZIP archives. Such timestamps are used by InfoZip to store UTC file time additionally to standard ZIP local time. Now WinRAR reads and sets such timestamps when extracting.
  • "Run", "Open in associated application", "Show archive contents" items are added to right click menu in WinRAR file list. So you can right click SFX archive or archive file with non-archive extension like .docx and choose if you wish to browse its contents, to run or open it.
  • These items are present only in the file management mode and are not available inside of archives.
  • "File types to open as archives first" option is moved from "Settings/Archives" to "Settings/Compression". Now it works only outside of archives to avoid conflicts with "Settings/Viewer/ Unpack everything for" option.
  • Default folders for archives and extracted files are moved from "Settings/Compression" to "Settings/Paths" dialog page.
  • Bugs fixed: some files in TAR archives could be unpacked with full paths even if "Extract relative paths" option was enabled.

New in WinRAR 5.50 Beta 2 (May 5, 2017)

  • Previous versions ignored files with invalid UTF-8 names inside of ZIP archives. Now WinRAR extracts such files, even though their names may include arbitrary text after unpacking.
  • BUG FIXED:
  • 5.50 beta 1 could crash when extracting some of broken RAR4 archives;
  • "Settings/Viewer/Unpack everything for" was ignored for files matching "Settings/Archives/File types to open as archives first" masks. Now it is changed, so "Unpack everything for" has a higher precedence for archived files. Files inside of archive matching
  • "Unpack everything for" masks are processed according to that option even if they are also matched by "File types to open as archives first" masks.

New in WinRAR 5.50 Beta 1 (Apr 13, 2017)

  • WinRAR and command line RAR use RAR 5.0 archive format by default. You can change it to RAR 4.x compatible format with "RAR4" option in archiving dialog or -ma4 command line switch.
  • If you prefer RAR 4.x format by default, use "Create default..." button on "Compression" page of WinRAR settings and set "RAR4" in the displayed dialog.
  • Use "Set master password" button in "Organize passwords" dialog to encrypt saved password records and protect them from unauthorized access. If saved passwords are protected with master password, you need to enter the master password and press "OK" in password prompt to access them. If entered password does not match the master password, it is treated as a usual password for archive operations. Once entered, the master password is valid until WinRAR is closed.Close WinRAR and open it again after specifying the master password if you wish to see how protection worksEnter a valid and then
  • empty master password to remove encryption from previously protected
  • password records. This WinRAR version uses a new data format for password organizer, so passwords stored in "Organize passwords" dialog are not readable by older versionsIt does not affect archive encryption formats
  • and encrypted archives are compatible with previous WinRAR version. Organizer data is converted to a new format only when you save it
  • and not immediately after installing WinRAR.
  • Prompt proposing to set the master password is displayed when storing a password in compression profileYou can enter the master password to encrypt password data stored in Registry and protect it from unauthorized access. You will need to enter the master password in password prompt dialog to access
  • such compression profile after that. Once entered, the master password is valid until WinRAR is closed. Close WinRAR and open it again after specifying the master password if you wish to see how protection works.
  • By default, WinRAR uses AES-256 in CTR mode to encrypt ZIP archives. While AES-256 is significantly more secure than ZIP 2.0 legacy encryption algorithm, it can be incompatible with some older unzip softwareIf compatibility with such tools is required, you can enable "ZIP legacy encryption" option in the password dialog or use -mezl switch in the command line mode
  • Added extraction support for .LZ archives created by Lzip compressor.
  • Modern TAR tools can store high precision file times, lengthy file names and large file sizes in special PAX extended headers inside of TAR archiveNow WinRAR supports such PAX headers and uses them when extracting TAR archives.
  • New "Store modification time" option on "Time" page of archiving dialog can be used to prohibit storing the file modification time in RAR 5.x archives. Former "High precision modification time" option is replaced by "High precision time format".
  • New "Full paths in title bar" option in "Settings/General" dialog. If enabled, the full path of currently opened folder or archive is displayed in WinRAR title bar.
  • New "Settings/Archives" page provides "File types to open as archives first" group of optionsHere you can define how Enter or double click on a file with non-archive extension and archive contents should be processed in WinRAR file list. Examples of such files are .docx or self-extracting .exe archives. You can instruct WinRAR to open such files as archives, to run them, to handle them similarly or differently inside and outside of archives, to never run specified file types even if they do not include any archived contents. Default settings are to open self-extracting exe and to run other types of archives with non-archive extension.Regardless of these options, you can always open any such archive file by pressing Ctrl+PgDn on its name in WinRAR file list.
  • New "Copy full names to clipboard" command in "File" menu places full names of selected files to clipboard.This command is also added to context menu displayed when right clicking the file list in WinRARSeveral other commands,
  • which are also present on the toolbar or in main menu, such as "View" and "Repair", are removed from this context menu.
  • LZ and ZIPX are added to list of associations in Settings/Integration
  • dialog.
  • LZ and ZIPX extensions are added to default list of formats for ms switch ("Specify file types to store") invoked without parameters. You can specify 'f' charset value in -sc switch to use UTF-8 encoding. For example: rar a -scfl arcname @filelist.txt to read contents of filelist.txt as UTF-8 text.
  • RAR "lt" and "vt" commands display file times with nanosecond precision.Such precision is used in RAR5 archives created by RAR/Unix 5.50 and newer. Archives created by WinRAR have 100ns file time precision.
  • Only '+', '-' and '1' precision modifiers are supported in -ts switch nowUse '+' to store the file time with maximum precision, '-' to omit the file time and '1' to store it with second precision.Intermediate precision modes previously
  • defined with '2' and '3' modifiers are not available in RAR 5.0 archive format and ignored by -ts switch.
  • If a wrong password is entered when unpacking an encrypted file in RAR5 archive, WinRAR proposes to enter a valid password for same file again instead of aborting extraction.
  • File path information is displayed if mouse pointer is placed over a name of archiving file in the operation progress window.
  • Name of currently active compression profile is displayed in the archiving dialog above "Profiles..." button.
  • If "Find" command is invoked from inside of archive subfolder, "File names to find" will include the path to this subfolder. So "Find" will search only starting from this subfolder.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • WinRAR failed to unpack files in ZIP archives compressed with XZ algorithm and encrypted with AES;
  • if "Windows progress bars" option in WinRAR settings was turned off and "Put each file to separate archive" archiving mode was used, "gold" part of total progress bar did not display the compressed data ratio correctly;
  • SFX archive extraction progress was incorrect in case of multivolume SFX archive with total volume size exceeding 4 GB;
  • if archived folder name included trailing spaces, if user selected and extracted some folders in non-root archive folder and if "Allow potentially incompatible names" extraction option was turned off, WinRAR could lose one or more leading characters in extracted folder name;
  • if only creation or only last access file time was stored in RAR5 archive with 1 second precision, such as with -ma5 -tsm- -tsa1 switches, this stored time was ignored when extracting.

New in WinRAR 5.40 Beta 4 (Jul 21, 2016)

  • Bugs fixed:
  • if ZIP archive contained an archive comment shorter than 24 characters, the comment page was not displayed in archive properties in Windows Explorer;
  • 'WinRAR x *.rar' command crashed if complete .part1.rar, .part2.rar, ..., .partN.rar volume set was found when expanding *.rar mask.

New in WinRAR 5.40 Beta 3 (Jul 4, 2016)

  • Bugs fixed:
  • RAR exited with code 6 (file open error) instead of expected code 10 (no files found) if file name specified for archiving did not exist;
  • WinRAR could issue an excessive sound notification in the middle of archiving if sound was enabled in WinRAR settings and "Put each file to separate archive" option turned on;
  • WinRAR did not delete a temporary file if ZIP archive modification was aborted, because ZIP archive had the read-only attribute;
  • WinRAR crashed if "Print file" command was applied to a file or folder without extension.

New in WinRAR 5.40 Beta 2 (Jul 4, 2016)

  • Switch -scul can be used to process big endian UTF-16 list files, provided that they have the correct byte order mark.
  • Previously it supported only little endian file lists.
  • 2. 5.40 beta 1 did not work on CPU without SSE2 instruction set.
  • It could take excessively long time to cancel WinRAR "Repair" command on some corrupt archives.
  • If "Generate archive name by mask" option was used and archive was created in a system protected folder requiring privileges elevation, mask was added to archive name twice.

New in WinRAR 5.40 Beta 1 (May 10, 2016)

  • "Name encoding" submenu in "Options" menu allows to select encoding for archived file names. This selection affects archive browsing and extraction commands. You can use Ctrl+E keyboard shortcut to access this menu quickly. It can be useful when unpacking an archive without Unicode file names. For example, unpacking a zip file with Chinese archived names in Windows with Russian specified as a language for non-Unicode programs.
  • If RAR recovery volumes (.rev files) are present in the same folder as usual RAR volumes, archive test command verifies .rev contents after completing testing .rar files. If you wish to test only .rev files without checking .rar volumes, you can select .rev files in WinRAR file list and apply "Test" only to them or run: rar t arcname.part1.rev in the command line.
  • While NTFS file system permits file names with trailing spaces and dots, a lot of Windows programs fail to process such names correctly. If "Allow potentially incompatible names" option in "Advanced" page of extraction dialog is turned off, WinRAR removes trailing spaces and dots, if any, from file names when extracting. This option is turned off by default. Command line RAR also removes trailing spaces and dots when extracting unless -oni switch is specified.
  • Previously "Synchronize archive contents" update mode (-as command line switch) aborted if some of archiving folders could not be read. Now WinRAR continues performing the operation and preserves archived files matching unreadable folders.
  • WinRAR Shift+Del delete command can be used to delete folders containing non-standard file names with trailing spaces and dots. Usual delete to Recycle Bin also as Shift+Del in previous WinRAR versions cannot delete such folders. Unlike Del command, Shift+Del removes files permanently, they are not moved to Recycle Bin. No additional prompts are issued for files with read-only and system attributes.
  • You can drag folders from folder tree panel and drop them to other programs or Desktop to copy or unpack them. Drag the archive icon in tree panel root to unpack the entire archive.
  • "New folder" button in extraction dialog proposes a new folder name based on archive name instead of generic "New Folder".
  • If -p switch is used without optional parameter, a password can be also set with file redirection or pipe. For example: rar -p myarc.rar myfiles < psw.txt
  • Command line RAR treats 'arcname.partN' as 'arcname.partN.rar' if 'arcname.partN' does not exist and 'arcname.part#.rar' exists. For example, it is allowed to run: RAR x arcname.part01 to start extraction from arcname.part01.rar
  • Maximum comment length for RAR archives is increased from 64 to 256 KB. Since SFX script commands are stored in archive comment, it allows a longer main and license text in SFX archives.
  • Size of default WinRAR viewer font is scaled up properly in Windows high DPI mode.
  • Minimum supported Windows version is Windows XP SP3 now. WinRAR will not run in Windows XP without service packs.
  • "Settings/File list/Allow all uppercase names" option is removed. This option was intended to simplify transition from MS DOS to Windows and is not needed anymore.
  • Command line RAR version information:
  • if -iver switch is specified, RAR displays the version number and quits. You can run just "RAR -iver";
  • "x86" or "x64" is displayed in Windows RAR version information both for -iver and in the copyright title for other commands.
  • Improvements in 7z archives support:
  • "Solid" status is correctly detected and reported for 7z archives in WinRAR "Info" command;
  • dictionary size is displayed for LZMA and LZMA2 7z archives in WinRAR "Info" command;
  • unknown packed size for files inside of 7z solid block is denoted as '?' instead of '0' when browsing the archive contents in WinRAR.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • WinRAR 5.31 x64 "Compress and email" command did not work with Microsoft Outlook x64;
  • if WinRAR 5.31 version for one of right to left languages was installed in Windows with English or other not right to left system language, WinRAR could change Windows Explorer layout to right to left;
  • if archive was stored in a folder without "Write" permission and if archive contents was extracted with drag and drop to a writable folder, WinRAR issued an unnecessary privileges elevation prompt.

New in WinRAR 5.31 (Feb 4, 2016)

  • Following issues are corrected in Windows high DPI mode:
  • if text size in Windows settings was set to 150% or larger, the font size in WinRAR help was not increased accordingly, resulting in too small text;
  • default columns width in WinRAR file list was less than expected for 125% or larger Windows text setting.
  • Interface improvements for right to left languages:
  • proper text alignment in simple WinRAR prompts, such as confirmations to delete archived files or to clear the log file;
  • "OK", "Cancel", "Help" buttons in multi-page dialogs, such as archiving and extraction options or WinRAR settings, are aligned correctly and translated to default Windows display language.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • WinRAR SFX module could load DLL libraries from its own executable folder as a result of calling some Windows API functions.
  • It could lead to security threat if DLL files with malicious code were stored in the same folder as SFX archive. Now SFX module takes additional steps to prevent such situation in Windows Vista and newer.
  • Be aware that users without latest Windows security patches installed also as Windows XP users still can be affected, so they must be especially careful to run SFX archive from a folder without suspicious DLL files;
  • WinRAR 5.30 failed to run .lnk files from file list.

New in WinRAR 5.30 Beta 6 (Oct 27, 2015)

  • Bugs fixed:
  • "Print file" command did not work with HTML files in Windows 10;
  • if relative path to report file was specified, "Generate report" command created a report file in WinRAR start folder instead of current WinRAR folder;
  • in some cases text scaling in SFX archive main and license dialogs in high DPI mode did not work, so text size was smaller than expected;
  • changes in broken archive processing to handle invalid ZIP, ARJ and ISO archives more reliably;
  • RAR "l" and "v" list commands added unneeded spaces after file names shorter than 12 characters.

New in WinRAR 5.30 Beta 5 (Oct 8, 2015)

  • Information about the critical vulnerability in WinRAR self-extracting archives recently published in news is incorrect. Unfortunately mass media failed to recognize that what was described as WinRAR vulnerability is Windows OLE vulnerability patched in November 2014. Even if unpatched, this Windows OLE vulnerability does not introduce new risk factors for WinRAR SFX archives. No patches for WinRAR are needed.
  • "Import/Export" commands:
  • WinRAR performs the additional validation of Settings.reg contents for "Import settings from file" command to prevent importing Registry keys unrelated to WinRAR settings;
  • WinRAR specifies the full path to regedit.exe tool to prevent running copies of "regedit" from other folders.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • If 'file' and 'file.exe' were present in the same folder and user double clicked on 'file', WinRAR could start 'file.exe' instead;
  • "Generate report" command could create a report in wrong folder, not that with selected files;
  • RAR could crash when unpacking .rar archives with corrupt file headers. Fixed now.

New in WinRAR 5.30 Beta 4 (Sep 14, 2015)

  • It is allowed to specify environment variables in path to external viewer in WinRAR "Settings/Viewer" dialog.
  • Folder wildcards behavior is changed, so command like: rar a backup c:\backup\2015*\* will search for '2015*' folders only in c:\backup. Add -r switch if you wish to search also in all c:\backup subfolders.
  • If wrong password is specified when extracting an encrypted file in RAR5 archive, WinRAR will not create folders contained in file path. Previous versions created file path folders even if file extraction failed because of wrong password. This change does not affect RAR 4.x format, which does not allow to verify password validity before starting file extraction.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • "Delete files after archiving" option of default compression profile was ignored in drag&drop operations in previous beta.

New in WinRAR 5.30 Beta 3 (Aug 27, 2015)

  • WinRAR treats .txz archive extension as .tar.xz and opens .txz contents in a single step.
  • If you drag a file from another application to WinRAR holding Shift button, a file will be deleted after archiving. Previous versions ignored Shift state here.
  • WinRAR ignores "Turn PC off when done" option in case of read and write errors if user pressed Cancel in repeat read or repeat write dialogs.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • archive comment is displayed also in empty ZIP archives. Previous versions did not display it if ZIP archive did not contain any files;
  • Explorer window containing a temporary folder with unpacked file could be opened when attempting to view an archived file in a corrupt ZIP archive. File entry in a corrupt ZIP could have a wrong "hard drive" icon.

New in WinRAR 5.30 Beta 2 (Aug 4, 2015)

  • SFX module sets sfxstime environment variable, which contains the module start time in "YYYY-MM-DD-HH-MM-SS-ms" format. You can specify it in Path command if you need to generate a time based unique installation path, such as "Path=myapp-%sfxstime%".
  • Fewer password requests in following cases in "Convert archives" command:
  • if "Convert archives" is applied to archive with encrypted file names, which contents is currently displayed in WinRAR;
  • if archive produced by "Convert archives" includes encrypted file names.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • RAR volumes renamed from standard .part1.rar, .part2.rar to .001, .002 are recognized and processed correctly now. Previous beta opened them as set of usual split files, not as RAR volumes;
  • reports produced with "Generate report" command contained invalid CRC32 checksums for non-archived files;
  • "rar x arcname.rar d:" command unpacks files to d: current folder. Previous version unpacked them to d: root folder;
  • archive comment was not encrypted if added to archive with encrypted headers using "c" command without -hp switch. This beta encrypts an archive comment in such case.

New in WinRAR 5.30 Beta 1 (Jul 20, 2015)

  • Added extraction of multipart ZIP archives created by 7-Zip. Such archives have .zip.001, .zip.002, ... file extensions. You need to open .zip.001 file in WinRAR shell to browse or unpack such archive. All parts must be stored in the same folder before starting extraction.
  • Added extraction of files split to multiple parts with .001, 002, ..., extensions. You can open .001 file as a usual archive and then unpack its contents. WinRAR will combine all parts and save them to extracted file. All parts must be stored in the same folder before starting extraction. "001" item is included to "Associate WinRAR with" list in "Settings/Integration" dialog.
  • WinRAR file list allows to use mouse Back and Forward buttons or Alt+Left and Alt+Right keyboard shortcuts to navigate in recently visited folders.
  • Folder wildcards are allowed in RAR command line in file names to archive. For example: rar a backup c:\backup\2015*\*. Recursion is enabled automatically for such folder wildcards even if -r switch is not specified.
  • "Extract" button in SFX archive is changed to "Pause" when extraction is started, so it is possible to pause SFX extraction and resume it later.
  • "Skip encrypted" option in "Find files" dialog to silently skip encrypted archives while performing search command.
  • Archive test command works for tar.gz, tar.bz2 and tar.xz archives. Since TAR format does not provide file data checksums, WinRAR checks only validity of GZIP, BZIP2 or XZ container.
  • Adding a new string to WinRAR diagnostic messages window could be slow and affect the operation performance in case of thousands of errors. Now it works fast regardless of errors number.
  • New 'R' object for -sc switch defines encoding of console RAR messages sent to redirected files and pipes. For example: rar lb -scur data > list.txt
  • will produce Unicode list.txt with archived file names.
  • Sleep time parameter in -ri[:] switch is adjusted to lower its impact to RAR performance and especially to recovery record related operations. Higher sleep time values are needed to reduce the system load to same level as in previous versions.
  • Console RAR "l" and "v" commands display file time in YYYY-MM-DD format.
  • When extracting RAR and ZIP archives created in Unix, WinRAR maps decomposed Unicode characters to precomposed. Such conversion is required for some Unix and OS X archives to correctly unpack non-English archived names in Windows. It works for Windows versions starting from Windows Vista.
  • Modification time is set for all folders created when unpacking 7z archives. Previous versions set it only for non-empty folders.
  • WinRAR prevents a computer to go to sleep by inactivity timeout until current operation, such as archiving, extraction or another archive processing, is done.
  • Total progress bar is displayed when extracting .arj, .lzh and .cab archives (except multivolume archives).
  • Progress bar is displayed when deleting files after archiving and when clearing "Archive" attribute of archived files.
  • "Test" command also verifies contents of NTFS alternate data streams in RAR 3.x - 5.x archives. Previously their contents was checked only during extraction command.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • console RAR crashed instead of displaying an overwrite prompt when attempting to add files to already existing volumes;
  • console RAR "lt" command did not display seconds in file timestamp;
  • WinRAR failed to decompress .xxe files if they did not include "section N of xxencode" string in the body;
  • RAR could not restore contents of NTFS alternate data stream saved with -os switch if it was split between different volumes.

New in WinRAR 5.21 Beta 2 (Jan 31, 2015)

  • Now by default WinRAR skips symbolic links with absolute paths in link target when extracting. You can enable creating such links with "Allow absolute paths in symbolic links" option on "Advanced" page of extraction dialog or with -ola command line switch. Such links pointing to folders outside of extraction destination folder can present a security risk. Enable their extraction only if you are sure that archive contents is safe, such as your own backup.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • if several files from different folders were selected and extracted using "Flat folders view" file list mode and "Extract relative paths" extraction option, WinRAR could truncate paths of some of these files. It did not happen if entire file list contents or a single file was selected.

New in WinRAR 5.21 Beta 1 (Jan 9, 2015)

  • "Drag and drop context menu" options in "Settings/Integration/Context menu items" dialog allow to disable WinRAR archiving and extraction commands in context menu displayed after dragging and dropping files with right mouse button.
  • If winrar.ini file is present in the same folder as WinRAR installer, winrar.ini will be copied to WinRAR program folder after completing installation.
  • While previous versions could produce RAR5 volumes of slightly smaller than requested size sometimes, such situation is less likely now. In most cases volume size equals to specified by user.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • WinRAR 5.20 issued unnecessary user account control (UAC) prompt, when running an executable from archive stored in UAC protected folder. Since nothing is extracted to folder containing an archive in such case, UAC prompt is not needed;
  • WinRAR could overwrite files with read-only attribute only when unpacking RAR and ZIP archive formats. Now it is also implemented for other archive formats supported by WinRAR;
  • "Elapsed time" and "Time left" were displayed incorrectly when applying "Convert" command to multiple archives and enabling "Add recovery record" option.

New in WinRAR 5.20 Beta 4 (Nov 17, 2014)

  • Bugs fixed:
  • "Extract each archive to separate folder" context menu command did not work properly and extracted all files to same folder if destination folder was protected with user account control (UAC).

New in WinRAR 5.20 Beta 3 (Nov 3, 2014)

  • Bugs fixed:
  • "Extract relative paths" option was ignored and full pathname was created when extracting a file from ZIP archive to a folder protected with user account control (UAC);
  • if encrypted archived file was opened in external editor, modified and saved, previous beta stored this file back to archive without encryption.

New in WinRAR 5.20 Beta 2 (Oct 20, 2014)

  • "Create WinRAR.ini file" command in "Export/Import" submenu of "Options" menu creates a new WinRAR.ini file and copies WinRAR settings from Registry to this file.
  • Beta 1 documentation described "Global" keys in WinRAR.ini as Global/AppData, Global/Integration, Global/SaveSettings, when actually they are Global\AppData, Global\Integration, Global\SaveSettings (backslash instead of forward slash).
  • Now WinRAR creates these keys in WinRAR.ini automatically if they do not already exist.
  • Compression settings in "Convert archives" dialog were not saved after pressing "Save" button.
  • First beta proposed "name.ext.ext.rar" instead of expected "name.ext.rar" archive name, when archiving "name.ext" folder.

New in WinRAR 5.20 Beta 1 (Oct 6, 2014)

  • If Windows User Account Control prevents extracting or archiving commands to create files in system protected folders, WinRAR attempts to start its another copy with administrator privileges to complete the operation. It is necessary to confirm privileges elevation in response to User Account Control prompt to allow such second WinRAR copy to run.
  • You can drag files in Explorer with right mouse button, drop them to some folder and select WinRAR archiving commands in context menu to create an archive with these files in the destination folder.
  • It is possible to use WinRAR.ini file instead of Registry to store WinRAR settings. You may prefer such approach if you plan to install WinRAR to removable media, such as USB flash drive, and then run it on different computers.
  • Added extraction support for ZIP and ZIPX archives using XZ compression algorithm.
  • If ZIP or ZIPX archive contains any compression algorithms except usual "Store" or "Deflate", algorithm names are displayed in "Version to extract" field of archive information dialog. Algorithms with names unknown to WinRAR will be assigned "m" name, where "num" is a compression algorithm numeric identifier.
  • "Open with WinRAR" command is available in Windows context menus for archive formats supported by WinRAR. It can be turned off with "Open with WinRAR (for usual archives)" option in WinRAR "Settings/Integration/Context menu items..." dialog.
  • Command line RAR can read the default set of switches from rar.ini file stored in RAR program folder. Previously it was possible to define only the same set of switches for all RAR command with "switches=" string. Now rar.ini also allows to specify separate switch sets for individual RAR commands using the following syntax: switches_=
  • Command "ch" supports switches -tl, -cu, -cl also for ZIP archives. Previously "ch" allowed these switches only for RAR archive format.
  • For archive formats lacking file time information, such as .bz2, .xz and .Z, WinRAR sets container archive modification time to extracted files. It does not apply to tar.bz2, tar.xz and tar.Z, which use file time stored in tar headers.
  • "Keep broken files" extraction option is supported for bzip2 archives.
  • WinRAR icon in Windows context menus is scaled up correctly in high DPI screen modes such as 150% or 200% of normal text size.
  • It is possible to disable WinRAR "Benchmark" command with "Benchmark" variable of HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\WinRAR\Policy Registry key. In multi-user environment "Benchmark" command might abuse shared computational resources. See "Registry variables" topic in "Configuration settings" chapter of WinRAR help for more details.
  • Additionally to "sfxcmd" variable containing the entire command line, SFX module sets "sfxpar" variable containing command line parameters only, without leading SFX module name. These variables are set before starting a program specified in "Setup" command.
  • File overwrite prompt in console RAR displays the size and modification time for existing and new files.
  • When archiving from stdin with -si switch, RAR sets the current system time to modification time of archived file. Previous version did not set this time at all.
  • It is possible to use -si and -v switches together. Previous versions did not allow to create volumes when archiving from stdin.
  • Warning is issued when starting unpacking 4 GB or larger file from RAR or ZIP archive to FAT32 patition, so user may cancel the operation. FAT32 does not support files of such size. Also this warning is issued when starting to create RAR archive with "Store" (-m0) method if estimated archive size is 4 GB or more.
  • "Select all" button in "Settings/Integration" dialog is renamed to "Toggle all". Now it deselects archive formats if all they are already selected.
  • "Delete archive" extraction option correctly removes all .zip and .7z volumes. Previously it removed only the first volume in the set for these archive formats.

New in WinRAR 5.11 Beta 1 (Aug 6, 2014)

  • WinRAR can unpack TAR archives containing folders with pax extended headers. Previous versions failed to unpack them.
  • "Keep broken files" extraction option is supported for 7-Zip archives.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • WinRAR 5.10 did not set "hidden", "read-only" and "system" file attributes when unpacking ZIP archives;
  • WinRAR 5.10 failed to update self-extracting RAR archives containing nested ZIP archives stored without compression;
  • ZIP archive created with "Do not store paths" option included unnecessary empty name records for folders;
  • archived files could have 1 hour modification time error in Windows XP;
  • deleting a file in RAR5 solid archive containing files stored with -ver switch caused such files to lose version information;
  • black rectangles were displayed instead of toolbar buttons in 16- and 24- bit screen color modes and Windows custom text size larger than 100%.

New in WinRAR 5.10 (Jun 20, 2014)

  • Added extraction support for ZIP and ZIPX archives using BZIP2, LZMA and PPMd compression.
  • Added extraction support for 7z split archives (.7z.001, .7z.002, ...).
  • Added support for AES-NI CPU instructions allowing to improve RAR encryption and decryption performance.
  • Default theme images are scaled up with better quality in high DPI display mode.
  • Environment variables, such as , can be used in "Files to add" field of archiving dialog.
  • Switch -ai can be used when creating RAR archive, so predefined values, typical for file and folder, are stored instead of actual attributes. Previously this switch could be used only when extracting.

New in WinRAR 5.10 Beta 4 (May 6, 2014)

  • Bugs fixed:
  • beta 3 failed to decompress multivolume encrypted RAR archives
  • "Update" command ("u" in command line mode) could update even files with same modification time
  • under rare conditions x86 version working in multithreaded mode on SSE2 enabled CPU could erroneously issue checksum error message for first file in valid RAR5 archive with BLAKE2sp checksums

New in WinRAR 5.10 Beta 3 (Apr 23, 2014)

  • More efficient implementation of "Keep broken files" extraction option (-kb switch in command line mode). Now it allows to recover more data from file split between RAR volumes if next volume is missing.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • "Create recovery volumes" command on "Options" page of archive information dialog was inaccessible if "Merge volume contents" option was enabled in WinRAR settings;
  • if wrong password was entered for RAR archive with encrypted file names, previous beta applied such wrong password automatically, when opening the same archive again.

New in WinRAR 5.10 Beta 2 (Apr 7, 2014)

  • Bugs fixed:
  • when processing nested archives, WinRAR could attempt to open inner archive as self-extracting instead of opening an outer archive. It happened if inner archive was stored without compression and outer archive name had non-standard extension;
  • Unix RAR could not decompress hard links stored by WinRAR if link source name included path separator characters.

New in WinRAR 5.10 Beta 1 (Mar 18, 2014)

  • Added extraction support for ZIP and ZIPX archives using BZIP2, LZMA and PPMd compression.
  • Added extraction support for 7z split archives (.7z.001, .7z.002, ...).
  • Added support for AES-NI CPU instructions allowing to improve RAR encryption and decryption performance.
  • Default theme images are scaled up with better quality in high DPI display mode.
  • Environment variables, such as %temp%, can be used in "Files to add" field of archiving dialog.
  • Switch -ai can be used when creating RAR archive, so predefined values, typical for file and folder, are stored instead of actual attributes. Previously this switch could be used only when extracting.

New in WinRAR 5.01 Beta 1 (Nov 12, 2013)

  • RAR 5.0 archives can include an optional quick open information controlled with -qo[-|+] switch or "Quick open information" options group in archiving dialog. It allows to open the archive contents in WinRAR faster. This version provides better update peformance for archives containing both quick open information and service records, such as NTFS file security. Also default parameters of quick open information are optimized to achieve faster open time for such archives.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • "Find" command could fail when searching text string in .7z archives;
  • when opening RAR 5.0 archive with encrypted file names stored in another such archive, WinRAR could issue an erroneous message that password is incorrect. It happened only if passwords to inner and outer archives were different. It did not affect extraction, all files could be unpacked regardless of this message;
  • option "Use for all archives" in password dialog did not suppress additional password requests for RAR 5.0 archives with encrypted file names;
  • WinRAR address bar did not process correctly environment variable based paths, such as %temp%;
  • storing NTFS file security and alternate data streams did not work for file pathnames longer than 260 characters;
  • "Test" command could erroneously report damaged data in valid recovery record if only a part of files in RAR 5.0 archive was tested. It did not happen if entire archive contents was tested;
  • "Test" command erroneously reported errors when verifying RAR 4.x Unix symbolic links;
  • WinRAR "View" command did not work for files inside of BZIP2 archives;
  • if "High precision modification time" option in archiving dialog was turned off, WinRAR did not store the modification time at all instead of storing a lower precision time;
  • destination paths containing .\ or ..\ component did not work when extracting non-RAR archives in WinRAR command line mode;
  • WinRAR failed to unpack multivolume CAB archives.

New in WinRAR 5.00 (Sep 3, 2013)

  • Includes all the changes featured in the previous Beta versions

New in WinRAR 5.00 Beta 8 (Aug 4, 2013)

  • WinRAR treats files with .txz extension as .tar.xz archives
  • If 7-Zip archive extraction is cancelled, WinRAR deletes the incompletely extracted file. Previous versions did not delete it.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • solid archive updating was aborted for archives contaning BLAKE2 checksums
  • folder tree panel did not allow to go to the archive root folder
  • "Reuse existing window" option did not work if first WinRAR copy was browsing an archive and second WinRAR copy attempted to open another archive in another folder
  • "Advanced compression parameters" dialog settings format in Registry was incompatible with WinRAR 4.20

New in WinRAR 5.00 Beta 7 (Jul 15, 2013)

  • Bugs fixed:
  • When processing a command like: WinRAR.exe a -sfxmymodule.sfx arcname.exe WinRAR ignored the optional parameter of -sfx switch and used
  • default.sfx module. Console RAR.exe did not have this bug;
  • WinRAR did not create the folder structure necessary to store unpacked hard links. So if folder containing a hard link did not exist yet, hard link extraction failed;
  • "rn" command displayed wrong file names for processed files. Files were renamed properly, only the screen output was incorrect;
  • When extracting ACE archive, WinRAR could create empty folders contained in such archive in a wrong destination folder.

New in WinRAR 5.00 Beta 6 (Jun 19, 2013)

  • Fixed a bug in recovery record generation in RAR 5.0 archive format.
  • Under certain circumstances previous beta versions could produce wrong recovery record data, inefficient to repair a corrupt archive. Such invalid recovery record can be identified with "Test" command, which issues "Recovery record is corrupt" warning for it.

New in WinRAR 5.00 Beta 5 (Jun 3, 2013)

  • Previous beta failed to decompress RAR archives contained both encrypted and unencrypted files. Archives containing only encrypted or only unencrypted files were unpacked correctly.
  • By default, RAR 5.0 log files produced with -ilog switch use UTF-16 little endian encoding. Now it can be changed with -scg switch, such as -scag for ANSI encoding.

New in WinRAR 5.00 Beta 4 (May 20, 2013)

  • If archiving operation cannot allocate memory required for compression dictionary, it automatically reduces the dictionary size.
  • Decompression algorithm can store the dictionary in several memory blocks. It helps to unpack an archive on systems with high level of memory heap fragmentation, when no single memory block is large enough to fit the entire compression dictionary.

New in WinRAR 5.00 Beta 3 (May 9, 2013)

  • Fixed XZ archive support, which did not work in beta 2.
  • "Convert" command did not allow to use compression dictionaries exceeding 4 MB.
  • If both encryption password and archive comment were specified when creating RAR archive, archive comment was not added.
  • "View as Unicode (UTF-8)" command in internal viewer did not work, so UTF-8 files were displayed correctly only if their encoding was detected by viewer automatically.
  • Maximum compression dictionary size when running in Windows XP x86 is reduced to 128 MB. WinRAR cannot allocate enough memory to create archives with 256 MB dictionary in Windows XP x86.
  • Corrections in relative path processing, such as "..\arcname.rar" name in archiving dialog or "WinRAR foldername" in the command line.

New in WinRAR 5.00 Beta 2 (Apr 30, 2013)

  • When adding an incompressible file to non-solid RAR archive, Beta 1 could duplicate the first megabyte of archived file, resulting in damaged file.
  • "Add to archive..." context menu command could place a created archive to a wrong folder.

New in WinRAR 5.00 Beta 1 (Apr 29, 2013)

  • New RAR 5.0 archiving format. You can use -ma command line switch to create RAR 5.0 archives. By default RAR creates archives in 4.x format.
  • Changes in RAR 5.0 compression algorithm:
  • maximum compression dictionary size is increased up to 1 GB in 64 bit RAR. 32 bit RAR version can use up to 256 MB dictionary when creating an archive. Both 32 bit and 64 bit versions can unpack archives with any dictionary size, including 1 GB;
  • default dictionary size for RAR 5.0 is 32 MB, typically resulting in higher compression ratio and lower speed than RAR 4.x 4 MB. You can use -md switch to change this value;
  • -md switch syntax is modified to support larger dictionary sizes. Append 'k', 'm' and 'g' modifiers to specify the size in kilo-, mega- and gigabytes, like -md64m for 64 MB dictionary. If modifiers are not present, megabytes are assumed, so -md64m is equal to -md64;
  • RAR 5.0 format includes Intel IA-32 executable and delta compression algorithms, but RAR 4.x text, audio, true color and Itanium algorithms are not supported. These excluded algorithms are not efficient for modern data types and hardware configurations;
  • RAR 5.0 decompression can utilize several CPU cores. Though not to same extent as in compression algorithm, it improves the decompression speed on large files with poorly compressible data or when using BLAKE2 checksums.
  • Changes in RAR 5.0 archive format:
  • file times are stored as Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) instead of former local time, making file exchange among several time zones more straightforward;
  • file names and archive comments use UTF-8 encoding.
  • RAR 5.0 recovery record is based on Reed-Solomon error correction codes. If recovery record size is large enough, 5% and more, the new error correction scheme provides much higher resistance to multiple damages comparing to RAR 4.x recovery record. Smaller record, such as 1 - 2%, or less random damage type would result in less difference between 4.x and 5.0. For single continuous damage 4.x and 5.0 efficiency is about the same.
  • Additionally to usual data erasures, the new recovery record is able to detect deletions and insertions of much larger size than in previous RAR versions. Maximum insertion size is several megabytes. Maximum deletion size depends on the damage type and in some cases can be as large as the recovery record size. Still, the best recovery performance and efficiency is achieved if no deletions and insertions are present, so all data including damaged sectors preserve their original positions. Thus, if you use some special software to copy an archive from damaged media, it is better to choose the mode, when damaged sectors are filled by zeroes or any other data instead of cutting them out completely from resulting file.
  • RAR 5.0 recovery record is more resistant to damage of recovery record itself and can utilize a partially corrupt recovery record data. Note, though, that "Repair" command does not fix broken blocks in recovery record. Only file data are corrected. After successful archive repair, you may need to create a new recovery record for saved files.
  • New recovery record is not based on 512 byte sectors anymore and incorporates more complicated data structures. So it is impossible to specify its size in sectors. For RAR 5.0 archives the parameter of -rr[N] switch and rr[N] command is always treated as a percent of archive size regardless of presence of % character. Typically N% recovery record can repair up to N% of continuously damaged data and increases the archive size by only slightly more than N%. Ability to fix multiple damages is proportional to N.
  • We used "Screaming Fast Galois Field Arithmetic Using Intel SIMD Instructions" paper by James S. Plank, Kevin M. Greenan and Ethan L. Miller to improve Reed-Solomon coding performance. Also we are grateful to Artem Drobanov and Bulat Ziganshin for samples and ideas allowed to make Reed-Solomon coding more efficient.
  • "Test" command verifies validity of RAR 5.0 recovery record. Recovery record is tested after processing all archived files.
  • If corrupt archive contains the recovery record, it might be possible to repair it even if recovery record validity test is failed. "Repair" command attempts to utilize even a partially damaged recovery record. So treat the negative recovery record test result as a reason to re-create the archive if original files are still available, but not as a reason to avoid "Repair" command.
  • Changes in RAR 5.0 encryption algorithm:
  • encryption algorithm is changed from AES-128 to AES-256 in CBC mode. Key derivation function is based on PBKDF2 using HMAC-SHA256;
  • special password verification value allows to detect most of wrong passwords without necessity to unpack the entire file;
  • if archive headers are not encrypted ("Encrypt file names" option is off), file 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 BLAKE2 values.
  • Switch -htb allows to utilize 256 bit length BLAKE2sp hash instead of 32 bit CRC32 as a file checksum.
  • While producing slightly larger archives, BLAKE2 can be used for file contents identification. If two files have the same BLAKE2 value, it practically guarantees that file contents is the same. BLAKE2 error detection property is also stronger than in much shorter CRC32.
  • Features removed:
  • authenticity verification feature did not provide the required level of reliability and was removed; b) switch -en (do not add "end of archive" block) is not supported by RAR 5.0 archives, which always have the end of archive block. This block helps RAR to safely skip external data like digital signatures appended to archive;
  • old style extension based arcname.rNN volume names are not supported by RAR 5.0 archives, which use only arcname.partN.rar volume names; d) file comments are not supported anymore both in RAR 4.x and RAR 5.0 archives. Console RAR 'cf' command is removed. It does not affect the archive comment support, which is present in both versions of archive format and is not planned for removal.
  • Switch -oh stores hard links as link instead of file. It is available only for RAR 5.0 archive format.
  • Changes in recovery volume processing in RAR 5.0 archive format:
  • maximum number of RAR+REV volumes in RAR 5.0 format is 65535 instead of 255;
  • recovery volume operations are faster than in RAR 4.x;
  • additionally to recovery data, RAR 5.0 REV files 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.
  • Command line RAR returns the exit code 11 if it can detect that user entered a wrong password. This code can be returned only for RAR 5.0 archives. It is impossible to distinguish a wrong password and data damage for RAR 4.x archives.
  • 'v' and 'l' commands display archived file names in the end of line, not in that beginning as before. Also some fields previously available in 'l' and 'v' output are now shown only by 'lt' and 'vt'. 'vt' and 'lt' commands provide the detailed multiline information for every archived file.
  • 'vta' and 'lta' also include service headers into list.
  • UTF-16 little endian encoding is used in RAR log file rar.log, so Unicode file names are stored in the log correctly.
  • Command line 'r' (repair) command can include an optional destpath\ parameter defining the destination folder for repaired archive: rar r archive.rar destpath\

New in WinRAR 4.20 (Jun 14, 2012)

  • Recovery volume creating and processing can use several CPU cores resulting in higher speed. Though, typically hard drive seek speed is a limiting factor for recovery volumes, so this gain is most noticeable when working with solid state drive.
  • Now the allowed value for -mt switch is 1 - 32, not 0 - 16 as before.
  • "Find files" command can search data in 7-Zip archives. Previously "Find files" did not support .7z archive format.
  • Windows 2000 is not supported by WinRAR and WinRAR self-extracting modules anymore.
  • RAR general decompression algorithm speed is slightly improved, though not to same extent as RAR compression. RAR decompression is not able to use several processor cores, so its performance does not depend on a number of cores.
  • "Save current settings" button in "Advanced SFX options" dialog is now available only when converting an existing archive to SFX. Options saved with this button are applied only to convert to SFX operation. If you create or update SFX archive, only SFX options stored in default compression profile are used. Options saved in "Advanced SFX options" dialog are ignored for these operations.
  • Changes in ZIP compression:
  • now ZIP compression supports several processor cores resulting in noticeably higher performance in multi-core environment. Single CPU ZIP compression is also faster than in 4.11;
  • memory use for ZIP compression is increased to about 15 MB.
  • Changes in RAR compression:
  • RAR general compression algorithm is optimized for better utilization of several processor cores. While some speed gain is possible even in single processor mode, best results are achieved in multi-core environment. Speed gain depends on data type and average file size. Several cores are utilized more efficiently when compressing large files.
  • we had to increase memory requirements to achieve higher compression speed. General RAR compression algorithm allocates about 120 MB comparing to 40 MB in WinRAR 4.11;
  • RAR text compression algorithm cannot utilize several CPU cores efficiently, so its performance in multiprocessor environment is much lower than for general algorithm. Also its decompression speed is much lower than in general algorithm regardless of CPU number. So we decided to disable the text algorithm by default. If you need maximum possible compression ratio for plain text data regardless of speed, you can enable the text compression in "Advanced compression parameter" dialog. Press "Compression..." button on "Advanced" page of archiving dialog to access it. You can also change this option permanently in default compression profile; In the command line mode the text compression can be enabled with -mct switch;
  • "Fastest" (-m1) compression mode also supports several processor cores now. In 4.11 it could use only a single processor core.

New in WinRAR 4.20 Beta 3 (May 28, 2012)

  • "Estimate" function in WinRAR "Info" command is adjusted to faster WinRAR 4.20 compression when calculating the expected compression time
  • GUI SFX module -sp switch passes parameters to setup application only if no other parameters were specified in "Setup" command in SFX script. So "Setup" command has a higher priority than -sp
  • Regardless of -sp presence, setup application can read the full SFX command line from sfxcmd environment variable
  • "Save current settings" button in "Advanced SFX options" dialog is now available only when converting an existing archive to SFX
  • Options saved with this button are applied only to convert to SFX operation
  • If you create or update SFX archive, only SFX options stored in default compression profile are used. Options saved in "Advanced SFX options" dialog are ignored for these operations

New in WinRAR 4.20 Beta 2 (May 14, 2012)

  • RAR compression speed is further improved in multi-core environment compared with beta 1.

New in WinRAR 4.20 Beta 1 (May 3, 2012)

  • Changes in RAR compression:
  • RAR general compression algorithm is optimized for better utilization of several processor cores. While some speed gain is possible even in single processor mode, best results are achieved in multi-core environment. Speed gain depends on data type and average file size.Several cores are utilized more efficiently when compressing large files.
  • we had to increase memory requirements to achieve higher compression speed. General RAR compression algorithm allocates about 120 MB comparing to 40 MB in WinRAR 4.11;
  • RAR text compression algorithm cannot utilize several CPU cores efficiently, so its performance in multiprocessor environment is much lower than for general algorithm. Also its decompression speed is much lower than in general algorithm regardless of CPU number. So we decided to disable the text algorithm by default. If you need maximum possible compression ratio for plain text data regardless of speed, you can enable the text compression in "Advanced compression parameter" dialog. Press "Compression..." button on "Advanced" page of archiving dialog to access it. You can also change this option permanently in default compression profile; In the command line mode the text compression can be enabled with -mct switch;
  • "Fastest" (-m1) compression mode also supports several processor cores now. In 4.11 it could use only a single processor core.
  • RAR general decompression algorithm speed is slightly improved, though not to same extent as RAR compression. RAR decompression is not able to use several processor cores, so its performance does not depend on a number of cores.
  • Changes in ZIP compression:
  • now ZIP compression supports several processor cores resulting in noticeably higher performance in multi-core environment. Single CPU ZIP compression is also faster than in 4.11;
  • memory use for ZIP compression is increased to about 15 MB.
  • Recovery volume creating and processing can use several CPU cores resulting in higher speed. Though, typically hard drive seek speed is a limiting factor for recovery volumes, so this gain is most noticeable when working with solid state drive.
  • Now the allowed value for -mt switch is 1 - 32, not 0 - 16 as before.
  • "Find files" command can search data in 7-Zip archives. Previously "Find files" did not support .7z archive format.
  • Windows 2000 is not supported by WinRAR and WinRAR self-extracting modules anymore.

New in WinRAR 4.11 (Feb 20, 2012)

  • Bugs fixed:
  • WinRAR did not store NTFS "Compressed" attribute, when creating RAR archives;
  • WinRAR crashed in command line mode if @filelist parameter was present and 'filelist' did not exist. This bug affected only WinRAR.exe, not RAR.exe;
  • if -x*\somefolder\* exclusion mask was specified when archiving and if name of current folder contained 'somefolder', WinRAR excluded all files and stopped creating an archive;
  • GUI self-extracting archives did not work in Windows Preinstallation Environment (Windows PE).

New in WinRAR 4.10 (Jan 17, 2012)

  • WinRAR can create ZIP archives of practically any size. 2 GB archive size and 65535 file number ZIP limitations of previous WinRAR versions are not valid anymore.
  • WinRAR can create multivolume ZIP archives, which are also known as
  • split ZIP files. ZIP volumes have names like 'volname.zip', 'volname.z01', 'volname.z02'. Use a volume with ".zip" file extension in all archive processing operations like starting extraction or opening an archive. Unlike RAR volumes, ZIP volumes cannot be self-extracting. WinRAR needs to have access to all ZIP volumes of multivolume file set at the same time, when creating or unpacking them. So it is impossible to create or unpack ZIP volumes on removable disks, one volume per disk. You need to create them all in the same folder.
  • Added the high precision file time support in ZIP archives. WinRAR can store and extract modification, creation and last access file time in ZIP archives with 100 nanosecond precision. You need to set "High precision modification time" option in "Time" part of archiving dialog to store all 3 times in archive. Set appropriate "File time" options in "Advanced" part of extraction dialog to choose times to extract.
  • Added support for Unicode names stored in ZIP extra field data. Different ZIP tools store Unicode names either in file header or in ZIP extra field and now WinRAR can correctly process both types of Unicode names.
  • "Synchronize archive contents" option and -as command line switch are
  • supported in ZIP format.
  • Modifications of switch -ag behavior:
  • a) -ag can be used with all RAR and WinRAR commands, not just with archiving only;
  • b) 'N' format character behavior differs in archiving and non-archiving operations. When archiving, it is incremented until the first unused name is found. In non-archiving operations like extracting it selects the existing archive preceding the first unused name;
  • c) 'I' format character allows to specify minutes regardless of presence
  • and position of 'H' (hours) in format string. It can be used instead of 'M' (minutes), when you wish to place minutes before hours or do not need hours at all.
  • By default, WinRAR proposes to update an archive if viewer modified an opened file or created any new files. New "Ignore modifications for" option in "Settings/Viewer" dialog allows to disable such behavior. You can enter one or several file masks separated by spaces here and WinRAR will not prompt to update an archive if file created or modified by viewer matches one of these masks.
  • Changes in volume size input field. Now you can select size units in the drop down list to the right of volume size. Previous way to define size modifiers, by entering 'k', 'm', etc. character after the numeric size value, is also supported.
  • Changes in "Predefined sizes" in "Define volume sizes" dialog. Floppies and ZIP disks are replaced by 5 MB and 100 MB volumes, added new entries for maximum FAT32 file size and for Blu-ray disks.
  • New "Wipe files if password is set" option in "Options" page of archiving dialog. If you prefer to always delete encrypted files securely, you can enable "Wipe files if password is set" in the default compression profile.
  • New "Wipe temporary files/Encrypted only" option in "Settings/Security". It allows to use a slower and more secure delete for temporary files extracted from archives identified by WinRAR as encrypted. Quick delete is used for all other temporary files.
  • Changes in "Convert archives" command:
  • a) now it is possible to convert encrypted archives. Previously "Convert archives" command skipped them. Though, if you still prefer to skip them, you can do it by enabling "Skip encrypted archives" option in "Convert archives" dialog. It might be useful if you wish to run the conversion command in unattended mode, avoiding password prompts;
  • b) special "rar2" archive type, which was specific for RAR 1.x and 2.x archives, is removed. Now "rar" archive type controls conversion of all versions of RAR archives. Since the convert command does not need to detect RAR archive version anymore, the initial search for archives is performed faster, resulting in shorter delay before displaying "Convert archives" dialog.
  • New -log[fmt][=name] switch allows to write archive and file names to log file in archiving command for RAR and ZIP formats and also in extracting, deleting and listing commands for RAR format. This switch is especially useful, when you need to further process an archive created with -ag or -v switches, because -log provides the archive name generated by WinRAR.
  • New -@[+] switch allows to process all parameters starting from character either as file names (-@) or as file lists (-@+).
  • "Setup program" SFX options are moved from "General" to "Setup" page of "Advanced SFX options" dialog. Both "Run after extraction" and "Run before extraction" are now multiline, so it is possible to specify several setup programs for same SFX archive.
  • "SetupCode" SFX script command instructs SFX archive to wait for termination of setup program and return the exit code of setup program increased by 1000 as the exit code of SFX executable. GUI equivalent of this command is "Wait and return exit code" option on "Setup" page of "Advanced SFX options" dialog.
  • SFX does not support "S" (create in the top level of Start Menu) "Shortcut" command mode anymore. Recent Windows versions do not allow programs to add items to the top of Start Menu.
  • Volume size in archiving and wizard dialogs can be specified as a decimal fraction. Decimal mark is defined by Windows regional settings.

New in WinRAR 4.10 Beta 5 (Dec 15, 2011)

  • Bugs fixed:
  • switch -n did not work properly, when used together with -ep1 and file masks including paths;
  • SFX archives in "Temporary mode" returned the exit code of setup program increased by 1000 even if "Wait and return exit code" option was not enabled

New in WinRAR 4.10 Beta 4 (Nov 22, 2011)

  • Improved detection of UTF-8 encoding in file names in ZIP archives. WinRAR attempts to recognize Unicode names, even when UTF-8 flag is not present in ZIP archive headers.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • If switch -t was set in RAR environment variable, WinRAR "View" command failed to open archived files;
  • ""Autodetect" string" option in "Define volume sizes" dialog did not work;
  • If "Split to volumes, size" in default compression profile was set to "Autodetect", "Delete" and "Add comment" commands refused to modify ZIP archives.

New in WinRAR 4.10 Beta 3 (Nov 7, 2011)

  • WinRAR could fail to display archive comments, when browsing RAR archives created with WinRAR 2.9 and older;
  • Switch -z without a parameter did not read the archive comment from stdin in console RAR version.

New in WinRAR 4.10 Beta 2 (Oct 20, 2011)

  • Volume size in archiving and wizard dialogs can be specified as a decimal fraction. Decimal mark is defined by Windows regional settings.
  • -v command line switch also allows decimal fractions.
  • In command line mode the dot (.) is always used as the decimal mark. For example, -v1.5g switch means 1.5 gigabytes.
  • "Add" command in first WinRAR beta did not allow to create a console SFX archive using WinCon.SFX module.
  • If ZIP archive contained ZIP Unicode path extra fields, the first beta could not unpack files in subfolders of such archive.
  • "CD700" and "FAT32" predefined volume sizes did not work properly.

New in WinRAR 4.10 Beta 1 (Oct 4, 2011)

  • WinRAR can create ZIP archives of practically any size.
  • 2 GB archive size and 65535 file number ZIP limitations of previous WinRAR versions are not valid anymore.
  • WinRAR can create multivolume ZIP archives, which are also known as split ZIP files.
  • ZIP volumes have names like 'volname.zip', 'volname.z01', 'volname.z02'. Use a volume with ".zip" file extension in all archive processing operations like starting extraction or opening an archive.
  • Unlike RAR volumes, ZIP volumes cannot be self-extracting.
  • WinRAR needs to have access to all ZIP volumes of multivolume file set at the same time, when creating or unpacking them. So it is impossible to create or unpack ZIP volumes on removable disks, one volume per disk. You need to create them all in the same folder.
  • Added the high precision file time support in ZIP archives. WinRAR can store and extract modification, creation and last access file time in ZIP archives with 100 nanosecond precision.
  • You need to set "High precision modification time" option in "Time" part of archiving dialog to store all 3 times in archive. Set appropriate "File time" options in "Advanced" part of extraction dialog to choose times to extract.
  • Added support for Unicode names stored in ZIP extra field data. Different ZIP tools store Unicode names either in file header or in ZIP extra field and now WinRAR can correctly process both types of Unicode names.
  • "Synchronize archive contents" option and -as command line switch are supported in ZIP format.
  • Modifications of switch -ag behavior:
  • -ag can be used with all RAR and WinRAR commands, not just with archiving only;
  • 'N' format character behavior differs in archiving and non-archiving operations. When archiving, it is incremented until the first unused name is found. In non-archiving operations like extracting it selects the existing archive preceding the first unused name;
  • 'I' format character allows to specify minutes regardless of presence and position of 'H' (hours) in format string. It can be used instead of 'M' (minutes), when you wish to place minutes before hours or do not need hours at all.
  • By default, WinRAR proposes to update an archive if viewer modified an opened file or created any new files. New "Ignore modifications for" option in "Settings/Viewer" dialog allows to disable such behavior. You can enter one or several file masks separated by spaces here and WinRAR will not prompt to update an archive if file created or modified by viewer matches one of these masks.
  • Changes in volume size input field. Now you can select size units in the drop down list to the right of volume size. Previous way to define size modifiers, by entering 'k', 'm', etc. character after the numeric size value, is also supported.
  • Changes in "Predefined sizes" in "Define volume sizes" dialog. Floppies and ZIP disks are replaced by 5 MB and 100 MB volumes, added new entries for maximum FAT32 file size and for Blu-ray disks.
  • New "Wipe files if password is set" option in "Options" page of archiving dialog. If you prefer to always delete encrypted files securely, you can enable "Wipe files if password is set" in the default compression profile.
  • New "Wipe temporary files/Encrypted only" option in "Settings/Security". It allows to use a slower and more secure delete for temporary files extracted from archives identified by WinRAR as encrypted. Quick delete is used for all other temporary files.
  • hanges in "Convert archives" command:
  • now it is possible to convert encrypted archives. Previously "Convert archives" command skipped them.
  • Though, if you still prefer to skip them, you can do it by enabling "Skip encrypted archives" option in "Convert archives" dialog. It might be useful if you wish to run the conversion command in unattended mode, avoiding password prompts;
  • special "rar2" archive type, which was specific for RAR 1.x and 2.x archives, is removed. Now "rar" archive type controls conversion of all versions of RAR archives.
  • Since the convert command does not need to detect RAR archive version anymore, the initial search for archives is performed faster, resulting in shorter delay before displaying "Convert archives" dialog. 13. New -log[fmt][=name] switch allows to write archive and file names to log file in archiving command for RAR and ZIP formats and also in extracting, deleting and listing commands for RAR format.
  • This switch is especially useful, when you need to further process an archive created with -ag or -v switches, because -log provides the archive name generated by WinRAR. 14. New -@[+] switch allows to process all parameters starting from '@' character either as file names (-@) or as file lists (-@+).
  • "Setup program" SFX options are moved from "General" to "Setup" page of "Advanced SFX options" dialog. Both "Run after extraction" and "Run before extraction" are now multiline, so it is possible to specify several setup programs for same SFX archive. 16. "SetupCode" SFX script command instructs SFX archive to wait for termination of setup program and return the exit code of setup program increased by 1000 as the exit code of SFX executable.
  • GUI equivalent of this command is "Wait and return exit code" option on "Setup" page of "Advanced SFX options" dialog.
  • SFX does not support "S" (create in the top level of Start Menu) "Shortcut" command mode anymore. Recent Windows versions do not allow programs to add items to the top of Start Menu.

New in WinRAR 4.01 (May 30, 2011)

  • Added support for file sizes stored in binary format in TAR archives. Some TAR archives use the binary size format instead of octal for files larger than 8 GB.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • "Repair" command failed to properly reconstruct structure of RAR archives, which contained at least one file with packed size exceeding 4 GB. This bug did not affect the recovery record based repair. It happened only if recovery record was not found and WinRAR performed reconstruction of archive structure;
  • even if "Do not extract paths" option in "Advanced" part of
  • extraction dialog was set as the default, WinRAR still unpacked
  • file paths if called from Explorer context menu;
  • after entering a wrong password for encrypted ZIP archive, sometimes WinRAR ignored subsequent attempts to enter a valid password;
  • "Wizard" command did not allow to create self-extracting and multivolume archives, when compressing a single folder or a file without extension;
  • "Import settings from file" command did not restore multiline comments in WinRAR compression profiles;
  • when converting RAR volumes having name1.name2.part#.rar name format, "Convert archives" command erroneously removed ".name2" name part. So resulting archive had name1.rar file name instead of expected name1.name2.rar;
  • RAR could crash when creating a new archive with -agNNN switch if archive number in generated name was 110 or larger;
  • WinRAR failed to display non-English file names in 7-Zip archives properly if they used a non-default code page. It was the display only problem, such names were unpacked correctly.

New in WinRAR 4.01 Beta 1 (May 10, 2011)

  • Added support for file sizes stored in binary format in TAR archives.Some TAR archives use the binary size format instead of octal for files larger than 8 GB.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • "Repair" command failed to properly reconstruct structure of RAR archives, which contained at least one file with packedsize exceeding 4 GB. This bug did not affect the recovery record based repair. It happened only if recovery record was not found and WinRAR performed reconstruction of archive structure;
  • even if "Do not extract paths" option in "Advanced" part of extraction dialog was set as the default, WinRAR still unpacked file paths if called from Explorer context menu;
  • after entering a wrong password for encrypted ZIP archive, sometimes WinRAR ignored subsequent attempts to enter a valid password;
  • "Wizard" command did not allow to create self-extracting and multivolume archives, when compressing a single folder or a file without extension;
  • "Import settings from file" command did not restore multiline comments in WinRAR compression profiles;
  • when converting RAR volumes having name1.name2.part#.rar name format, "Convert archives" command erroneously removed ".name2" name part. So resulting archive had name1.rar file name instead of expected name1.name2.rar;
  • RAR could crash when creating a new archive with -agNNN switch if archive number in generated name was 110 or larger.

New in WinRAR 4.00 (Mar 8, 2011)

  • RAR decompression speed is improved. Depending on data type, decompression can be up to 30% faster than in previous versions.
  • Both the general RAR algorithm and most of special RAR multimedia methods benefit from this improvement. The only module of RAR algorithm, which is not affected, is "Text compression" method.
  • Changes in ISO support:
  • UDF support is upgraded to UDF 2.50 revision. It makes possible to unpack most of Blu-ray ISO files;
  • when browsing UDF ISO file, UDF revision number is displayed after the "UDF" format name in WinRAR address bar and in archive information dialog;
  • WinRAR sets the folder modification date when unpacking folders stored in UDF and ISO9660 files.
  • Changes in password dialog:
  • WinRAR uses the same format of password dialog both when archiving and extracting, so "Show password" option is available also when extracting
  • "Organize passwords..." button in password dialog provides access to password organizer interface, where you can specify your frequently used passwords. You will be able to access these saved passwords using the drop down list or autocomplete feature in password dialog. It is important to know that saved passwords are not encrypted
  • and anybody having access to your computer can view them. Use "Organize passwords" feature only if your computer is protected from unauthorized access;
  • "Use for all archives" option is available in password dialog when unpacking several archives at once. You can utilize it to apply an entered password to all archives. If you use this option with an empty password, WinRAR will skip all encrypted archives;
  • Unlike previous versions, the password from default compression profile is not used for extraction.
  • If you wish to use the same password for all extracting archives, press "Organize passwords..." button in the password dialog and define a new password entry, specifying "*" file mask in "Select for archives" field.
  • In Windows 7 WinRAR will display the total operation progress also on WinRAR icon on Windows taskbar. You can disable it using "Taskbar progress bar" option on "General" page of WinRAR settings.
  • Numerous Unicode support improvements allow to process non-English
  • file names more smoothly. These improvements include:
  • better Unicode handling in WinRAR in "Rename", "Convert", "Find" and other commands, in folder tree panel, in password request dialog and in many other parts of WinRAR interface;
  • correctly displayed Unicode names in WinRAR items in Explorer context menus;
  • Unicode support in .lng files, making WinRAR localization possible for Unicode only languages.
  • Changes in -x switch syntax. Now you can specify a wildcard exclusion mask for folders. Such mask must have the trailing '\' character, like -x*tmp*\ or -x*\temp\
  • New "Extract relative paths" option in "Advanced" part of extraction dialog. If you browse some archive subfolder in WinRAR shell and enable "Extract relative paths" option, the path part up to and including the current subfolder will be removed from extracted file paths. For example, if you are inside of "Backup\MyData" archive folder and extract "Images" folder, it will be extracted as "Images", not as "Backup\MyData\Images". This option is the new default extraction mode, but you can change the default back to WinRAR 3.x style. Just select "Extract full paths" and then press "Save settings" in "General" part of extraction dialog.
  • Windows 98, Windows Me and Windows NT are not supported by WinRAR
  • and WinRAR self-extracting modules anymore. Minimum Windows version required for WinRAR 4.0 is Windows 2000.
  • If TAR, TAR.GZ or TAR.BZ2 archive contains symbolic or hard links and if destination file system is NTFS, WinRAR will create these links when unpacking such archive. WinRAR will create symbolic link as symbolic and hard links as hard in Windows Vista and newer and it will create all links as hard in older Windows. If destination file system is FAT32 or any other not supporting file links, WinRAR will skip links when unpacking TAR, TAR.GZ
  • and TAR.BZ2 archives.
  • Recovery volume processing involves less disk seek operations
  • resulting in higher performance.
  • You can select Windows 7 library in tree panel in extraction dialog and WinRAR will use its default save location as the destination path.
  • "Report" command allows to select HTML, Unicode text and usual text as output format for report file. Unlike previous WinRAR versions, now WinRAR preservers Unicode characters in reports when using HTML or Unicode text format. So non-English characters in file names will be displayed properly in such reports.
  • Message list in GUI SFX archives displays only operation status and error messages. It does not contain names of all extracted files anymore. This change improves the speed and reduces memory requirements for SFX archives containing a large number of files. Also it makes easier to locate error messages, because they are not hidden among extracted file names.
  • GUI SFX archives display "Extract" button instead of "Install" if no "Setup" or "Presetup" commands are present in the archive comment. If you prefer "Install" button, but do not need to execute any setup programs, you can add "Setup=" command.
  • WinRAR displays the current percent above the operation progress bar when repairing an archive containing the recovery record and when processing recovery volumes.
  • WinRAR limits the maximum possible volume size to 4 GB minus 1 byte when creating RAR volumes on a disk with FAT or FAT32 file system in volume size autodetecting mode. These file systems do not support 4 GB and larger files.
  • If "Wait if other WinRAR copies are active" option is enabled and WinRAR waits for another copy, you can press "Continue" button in command progress window to force WinRAR to stop waiting. So now "Continue" button allows to override the state of "Wait if other WinRAR copies are active" option for current operation.
  • WinRAR displays one password request instead of two, when saving an encrypted file back to RAR or ZIP archive after modifying it in some external editor. Previous WinRAR versions usually requested the password twice, both when extracting the original file and archiving its modified copy. Only RAR archives with encrypted file names were processed with the single password prompt.
  • New error code 10 ("no files") is added to list of error codes returned in command line mode by RAR and WinRAR. This new code can be returned by archive, extract, delete and repair commands. It means that RAR did not find any files matched the specified file or archive mask.
  • File name area in file overwrite dialog occupies several lines now. It makes possible to display much longer names. Now switch -ep3 converts not only disk letters, but also UNC paths. So \\server\share will be converted to __server\share when archiving and restored to the original \\server\share when extracting with -ep3.
  • New "Background extraction" option in "Advanced" part of extraction dialog places WinRAR into background, when extracting files. You can save its default state with "Save settings" button in "General" part of extraction dialog, just like for other extraction options. "Background archiving" option from the default compression profile does not affect the extraction behavior anymore.
  • "Mode..." button in operation progress window is enabled also when extracting or testing archives. It provides access to "Command parameters" dialog, where you can set "Turn PC off when done" option for extraction and test operations. Previously this dialog was accessible only when archiving.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • renaming a file in archive could also rename all other files with the same name in other folders of the same archive;
  • previous versions displayed the wrong total packed size in "Info" command for multivolume CAB archives;
  • in ZIP archives 'U' (update) and 'F' (fresh) commands could erroneously update even files not specified in the command line. It happened only for files in current folder which names matched files in ZIP archive. This bug was not present in usual 'A' (add) archiving mode.

New in WinRAR 4.00 Beta 7 (Feb 21, 2011)

  • Bugs fixed:
  • "Prediction order", "Memory to use" and "Channels" fields in "Advanced compression parameters" dialog, "Lowest allowed ratio" in archive conversion dialog, "recovery volumes" field in archiving dialog did not provide enough space to enter maximum values allowed for these parameters. Now the width of these controls is increased.

New in WinRAR 4.00 Beta 6 (Feb 6, 2011)

  • Bugs fixed:
  • "Use for all archives" option in the password dialog did not work for several 7-Zip archives with encrypted file names;
  • "Rename" command could fail to rename archived folders with non-English names in RAR archives created by old WinRAR versions;
  • when WinRAR was running in the background, its tray icon messages were truncated if longer than 63 characters.

New in WinRAR 4.00 Beta 5 (Jan 24, 2011)

  • Now WinRAR command line mode -ibck switch is applicable to most of archive processing operations, not just archiving and extracting.
  • Default compression profile options do not modify extraction behavior anymore and "Background archiving" option does not work for extraction.
  • So we added the separate "Background extraction" option in "Advanced" part of extraction dialog. You can save the default state of this option with "Save settings" button in "General" part of extraction dialog, just like for other extraction options.
  • Switch -cfg- disables use of "Default folder for archives" from WinRAR settings in WinRAR command line mode. Also it forces WinRAR to ignore "Select for archives" fields in "Organize passwords" dialog.
  • "Mode..." button in the operation progress window is enabled also when extracting or testing archives. It provides access to "Command parameters" dialog, where you can set "Turn PC off when done" option for extraction and test operations. Previously this dialog was accessible only when archiving.
  • Double clicking on a password record in "Organize passwords" dialog works like "Edit" button, opening "Password information" dialog.
  • Previous beta versions ignored the double click in "Organize passwords".
  • Bugs fixed:
  • a) "a" and "s" commands with -iicon and -iimg switches did not remove
  • temporary files in WinRAR temporary folder after completion;
  • b) "Enable autocomplete" option in "Organize passwords" dialog
  • did not allow to disable the autocomplete feature in Windows XP.

New in WinRAR 4.00 Beta 4 (Jan 4, 2011)

  • Bugs fixed:
  • previous beta failed to create ZIP self-extracting archives;
  • cursor was not placed to renamed file after renaming files in archive;
  • previous beta versions could truncate some of files, extracted from ISO 9660 archives.

New in WinRAR 4.00 Beta 3 (Dec 18, 2010)

  • Now switch -ep3 converts not only disk letters, but also UNC paths. So \\server\share will be converted to __server\share when archiving and restored to the original \\server\share when extracting with -ep3.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • a) previous beta could fail to unpack self-extracting and multivolume CAB archives;
  • "Create a new folder" command always created new folders in the root archive folder;
  • c) "Remove redundant folders from extraction path" option did not work;
  • d) previous beta crashed when displaying archive comments with ANSI escape sequences;
  • e) switches -cl and -cu did not work.

New in WinRAR 4.00 Beta 2 (Dec 17, 2010)

  • "Reenter password for verification" field is not displayed in password dialog when extracting or opening an encrypted archive. It is present only when archiving and only if "Show password" option is off.
  • If you enabled "Use for all archives" option when entering the default password (Ctrl+P) and specified the empty password, extract and test commands will skip all encrypted archives.
  • If you prefer to use "Install" button instead of "Extract" in SFX module, but do not need any setup programs, you can add "Setup=" command to archive comment or enter "" as setup name in "Advanced SFX options" dialog. We changed it to "Setup=" instead of "Setup" as in the first beta,
  • because presence of specific parameter allows to enable this mode also through "Advanced SFX options" dialog, by entering "" as setup name.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • a) extraction operation activated from Explorer context menu could fail if several archives were selected and processed at once;
  • WinRAR window title did not contain the current disk name, when browsing the root disk folder;
  • items related to extraction were not present in Explorer context menu for 7-Zip self-extracting archives;
  • d) sorting by "Type" in WinRAR shell did not work inside of archives.

New in WinRAR 4.00 Beta 1 (Dec 17, 2010)

  • RAR decompression speed is improved. Depending on data type, decompression can be up to 30% faster than in previous versions. Both the general RAR algorithm and most of special RAR multimedia methods benefit from this improvement. The only module of RAR algorithm, which is not affected, is "Text compression" method.
  • Changes in ISO support:
  • a) UDF support is upgraded to UDF 2.50 revision. It makes possible to unpack most of Blu-ray ISO files;
  • b) when browsing UDF ISO file, UDF revision number is displayed after the "UDF" format name in WinRAR address bar and in archive information dialog;
  • WinRAR sets the folder modification date when unpacking folders stored in UDF and ISO9660 files.
  • Changes in password dialog:
  • a) WinRAR uses the same format of password dialog both when archiving and extracting, so "Show password" option is available also when extracting;
  • b) "Organize passwords..." button in password dialog provides access to password organizer interface, where you can specify your frequently used passwords. You will be able to access these saved passwords using the drop down list or autocomplete feature in password dialog.
  • It is important to know that saved passwords are not encrypted and anybody having access to your computer can view them. Use "Organize passwords" feature only if your computer is protected from unauthorized access;
  • c) "Use for all archives" option is available in password dialog when unpacking several archives at once. You can utilize it to apply an entered password to all archives.
  • If you use this option with an empty password, WinRAR will skip all encrypted archives.
  • In Windows 7 WinRAR will display the total operation progress also on WinRAR icon on Windows taskbar. You can disable it using "Taskbar progress bar" option on "General" page of WinRAR settings.
  • Numerous Unicode support improvements allow to process non-English file names more smoothly. These improvements include:
  • a) better Unicode handling in WinRAR in "Rename", "Convert", "Find" and other commands, in folder tree panel, in password request dialog and in many other parts of WinRAR interface;
  • b) correctly displayed Unicode names in WinRAR items in Explorer context menus;
  • c) Unicode support in .lng files, making WinRAR localization possible for Unicode only languages.
  • Changes in -x switch syntax. Now you can specify a wildcard exclusion mask for folders. Such mask must have the trailing '\' character, like -x*tmp*\ or -x*\temp\
  • New "Extract relative paths" option in "Advanced" part of extraction dialog. If you browse some archive subfolder in WinRAR shell and enable "Extract relative paths" option, the path part up to and including the current subfolder will be removed from extracted file paths.
  • For example, if you are inside of "Backup\MyData" archive folder and extract "Images" folder, it will be extracted as "Images", not as "Backup\MyData\Images".
  • This option is the new default extraction mode, but you can change the default back to WinRAR 3.x style. Just select "Extract full paths" and then press "Save settings" in "General" part of extraction dialog.
  • Windows 98, Windows Me and Windows NT are not supported by WinRAR and WinRAR self-extracting modules anymore. Minimum Windows version required for WinRAR 4.0 is Windows 2000.
  • If you need to run WinRAR on older Windows, you can download previous WinRAR versions
  • If TAR, TAR.GZ or TAR.BZ2 archive contains symbolic or hard links and if destination file system is NTFS, WinRAR will create these links when unpacking such archive. WinRAR will create symbolic links as symbolic and hard links as hard in Windows Vista and newer and it will create all links as hard in older Windows.
  • If destination file system is FAT32 or any other not supporting file links, WinRAR will skip links when unpacking TAR, TAR.GZ and TAR.BZ2 archives.
  • Recovery volume processing involves less disk seek operations resulting in higher performance.
  • You can select Windows 7 library in tree panel in extraction dialog and WinRAR will use its default save location as the destination path.
  • "Report" command allows to select HTML, Unicode text and usual text as output format for report file. Unlike previous WinRAR versions, now WinRAR preservers Unicode characters in reports when using HTML or Unicode text format. So non-English characters in file names will be displayed properly in such reports.
  • Message list in GUI SFX archives displays only operation status and error messages. It does not contain names of all extracted files anymore. This change improves the speed and reduces memory requirements for SFX archives containing a large number of files. Also it makes easier to locate error messages, because they are not hidden among extracted file names.
  • GUI SFX archives display "Extract" button instead of "Install" if no "Setup" or "Presetup" commands are present in the archive comment. If you prefer "Install" button, but do not need to execute any setup programs, you can add "Setup=" command.
  • WinRAR displays the current percent above the operation progress bar when repairing an archive containing the recovery record and when processing recovery volumes.
  • WinRAR limits the maximum possible volume size to 4 GB minus 1 byte when creating RAR volumes on a disk with FAT or FAT32 file system in volume size autodetecting mode. These file systems do not support 4 GB and larger files.
  • If "Wait if other WinRAR copies are active" option is enabled and WinRAR waits for another copy, you can press "Continue" button in command progress window to force WinRAR to stop waiting. So now "Continue" button allows to override the state of "Wait if other WinRAR copies are active" option for current operation.
  • WinRAR displays one password request instead of two, when saving an encrypted file back to RAR or ZIP archive after modifying it in some external editor. Previous WinRAR versions usually requested the password twice, both when extracting the original file and archiving its modified copy. Only RAR archives with encrypted file names were processed with the single password prompt.
  • New error code 10 ("no files") is added to list of error codes returned in command line mode by RAR and WinRAR. This new code can be returned by archive, extract, delete and repair commands. It means that RAR did not find any files matched the specified file or archive mask.
  • File name area in file overwrite dialog occupies several lines now. It makes possible to display much longer names.
  • Now switch -ep3 converts not only disk letters, but also UNC paths. So \\server\share will be converted to __server\share when archiving and restored to the original \\server\share when extracting with -ep3.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • a) renaming a file in archive could also rename all other files with the same name in other folders of the same archive;
  • b) previous versions displayed the wrong total packed size in "Info" command for multivolume CAB archives;
  • c) in ZIP archives 'U' (update) and 'F' (fresh) commands could erroneously update even files not specified in the command line. It happened only for files in current folder which names matched files in ZIP archive. This bug was not present in usual 'A' (add) archiving mode.

New in WinRAR 3.93 (Nov 15, 2010)

  • Bugs fixed:
  • in WinRAR 3.92 -xd:\path\folder switch could also exclude folders, which path does not match the path specified in the switch and only the folder name is the same as specified;
  • switches -y -or did not work correctly together. Switch -or was ignored in presence of -y.

New in WinRAR 3.92 (Feb 16, 2010)

  • If you start WinRAR command from Explorer context menu in multiple monitor configuration, the command dialog will be displayed on the same monitor as context menu. In previous versions it was always displayed on primary monitor.
  • WinRAR "Compress and email..." context menu command adds the archive name to email subject. Previous versions left the subject blank.
  • In RAR 3.91 -x switch could also exclude folders from archiving even if mask contained wilcard characters and did not contain a path. For example, -x*. excluded all those folders, which do not have the extension in the name. Now -x switch uses RAR 3.80 approach for masks without path, excluding folders only if mask does not contain wildcards and matches the folder name exactly.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • a) WinRAR 3.91 reported the incorrect "Unexpected end of archive"error, when opening an empty ZIP archive created with "New WinRAR ZIP archive" context menu command;
  • b) if "Delete archive" option was enabled when unpacking several ZIP archives and if one of archives was damaged, WinRAR did not delete archives after the damaged one, even if they were unpacked successfully;
  • c) if file matched two different masks in RarFiles.lst, WinRAR could select the last match. Normally, if neither of masks is a subset of another, the first match must be chosen.

New in WinRAR 3.92 Beta 1 (Jan 23, 2010)

  • If you start WinRAR command from Explorer context menu in multiple
  • monitor configuration, the command dialog will be displayed
  • on the same monitor as context menu. In previous versions it was
  • always displayed on primary monitor.
  • WinRAR "Compress and email..." context menu command adds the archive
  • name to email subject. Previous versions left the subject blank.
  • In RAR 3.91 -x switch could also exclude folders from archiving
  • even if mask contained wilcard characters and did not contain a path.
  • For example, -x*. excluded all those folders, which do not have
  • the extension in the name. Now -x switch uses RAR 3.80 approach
  • for masks without path, excluding folders only if mask does not
  • contain wildcards and matches the folder name exactly.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • a) WinRAR 3.91 reported the incorrect "Unexpected end of archive"
  • error, when opening an empty ZIP archive created with
  • "New WinRAR ZIP archive" context menu command;
  • b) if "Delete archive" option was enabled when unpacking several
  • ZIP archives and if one of archives was damaged, WinRAR did not
  • delete archives after the damaged one, even if they were unpacked
  • successfully;
  • c) if file matched two different masks in RarFiles.lst, WinRAR
  • could select the last match. Normally, if neither of masks
  • is a subset of another, the first match must be chosen.

New in WinRAR 3.91 Stable (Jan 5, 2010)

  • This version can decompress 7-Zip archives created with LZMA2 algorithm.
  • Now a password is requested only once when unpacking 7z archives with encrypted file names from context menu. WinRAR 3.90 asked it twice.
  • This version can unpack tar.bz2 archives consisting of several smaller bz2 streams merged together. Previous versions unpacked only the first nested bz2 stream in such composite archive.
  • WinRAR displays CRC32 of files inside of usual .gz (not .tar.gz) archives. Previous versions left this field blank for GZIP files.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • WinRAR 3.90 displayed "Save" button instead of "Open" or "OK" in "Find archive" dialog ("Open archive" command in "File" menu and "Browse..." command in archiving dialog);
  • WinRAR could display incorrect file names when browsing malformed ZIP archives;
  • WinRAR 3.90 failed to decompress LZH archives created with "-lh7-" algorithm;
  • WinRAR 3.90 could fail to delete a part of files after archiving if delete to Recycle Bin was enabled. This bug was present when working in Windows XP, but not in Windows Vista and Windows 7;
  • when unpacking ISO file using WinRAR "Extract files..." command in Explorer context menu, WinRAR could unpack same archived files twice during the same operation. It displayed the overwrite prompt when unpacking files for the second time;
  • hexadecimal search in WinRAR 3.90 "Find" command and console RAR "ih" command failed to find matches if first byte in search string was greater than 127.

New in WinRAR 3.91 Beta 2 (Jan 5, 2010)

  • WinRAR might crash when testing corrupt CAB files.
  • Beta 1 crashed on some of TAR.BZ2 archives.
  • Total progress bar could be displayed incorrectly in "Convert archives" command in beta 1.
  • SFX archives set the wrong value to "sfxcmd" environment variabe if user account control prompt was displayed when unpacking.

New in WinRAR 3.91 Beta 1 (Jan 5, 2010)

  • This version can decompress 7-Zip archives created with LZMA2 algorithm.
  • Now a password is requested only once when unpacking 7z archives with encrypted file names from context menu. WinRAR 3.90 asked it twice.
  • This version can unpack tar.bz2 archives consisting of several smaller bz2 streams merged together. Previous versions unpacked only the first nested bz2 stream in such composite archive.
  • WinRAR displays CRC32 of files inside of usual .gz (not .tar.gz) archives. Previous versions left this field blank for GZIP files.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • WinRAR 3.90 displayed "Save" button instead of "Open" or "OK" in "Find archive" dialog ("Open archive" command in "File" menu and "Browse..." command in archiving dialog);
  • WinRAR could display incorrect file names when browsing malformed ZIP archives;
  • WinRAR 3.90 failed to decompress LZH archives created with "-lh7-" algorithm;
  • WinRAR 3.90 could fail to delete a part of files after archiving if delete to Recycle Bin was enabled. This bug was present when working in Windows XP, but not in Windows Vista and Windows 7;
  • when unpacking ISO file using WinRAR "Extract files..." command in Explorer context menu, WinRAR could unpack same archived files twice during the same operation. It displayed the overwrite prompt when unpacking files for the second time;
  • hexadecimal search in WinRAR 3.90 "Find" command and console RAR "ih" command failed to find matches if first byte in search string was greater than 127.

New in WinRAR 3.90 (Jan 5, 2010)

  • WinRAR version for Windows x64 is available. If you use Windows x64, it is strongly recommended to install 64 bit WinRAR version. It provides a higher performance and better shell integration than 32 bit version.
  • RAR compression speed is improved for multi-core and multi-CPU systems. This improvement is most noticeable in Windows Vista and Windows 7 operating systems.
  • "Remove duplicate folders from extraction path" option in Settings/Compression" dialog is replaced by more universal "Remove redundant folders from extraction path" option. This option will eliminate redundant archive name based folders from extraction path if you unpack an archive with "Extract to DestName" context menu command and if archive root folder contains only one folder and no files.
  • Changes in "Extraction path and options" dialog:
  • "New folder" button creates a new subfolder in currently selected folder;
  • F2 key renames a selected folder in the folders tree;
  • F5 key updated the tree pane contents;
  • Del key removes a selected folder in the folders tree.
  • You can enable "Show seconds" option in "Settings/File list" dialog if you wish to see seconds in file dates in file list in WinRAR shell.
  • "Where to check for SFX archives" options group in "Settings / Integration / Context menus items" dialog lets you to control processing of SFX archives in context menus. For example, if you frequently right click ".exe" files on slow network disks, you can turn off "Network disks" options to minimize the delay before displaying the context menu.
  • If you sort files by name in the file list in WinRAR shell, WinRAR will use the new logical file name sorting, same as in Windows Explorer, considering digits in file names by their numerical value. So files will be sorted as 1.txt, 2.txt, 10.txt instead of previous 1.txt, 10.txt, 2.txt. This new sort behavior is available in Windows XP Service Pack 2 and newer.
  • Ctrl+W key combination can be used to close the main WinRAR window also as WinRAR viewer windows. "View as Windows text" shortcut in WinRAR viewer changed from Ctrl+W to Ctrl+I.
  • New command line switch -r- disables recursion completely. So 'rar a -r- arc dirname' command will add only the empty dirname folder and ignore its contents. By default, if dirname does not include wildcards, RAR adds its contents even if -r switch is not specified.
  • If used when extracting, the new command line switch -ai forces RAR to ignore file attributes. When using this switch, extracted files will always have attributes assigned by operating system to a newly created file by default.
  • If output file name is not specified in "cw" command, console RAR will send comment data to stdout.
  • When compressing stdin data with -si[name] switch, RAR sets modification time of archived entry to current system time. Previous RAR versions did not fill this field, resulting in meaningless modification time for stdin.
  • Message displayed when you place the mouse cursor on WinRAR tray icon includes the archive name now. Previously only time left and total percent were displayed for archiving operations.
  • New 'Shutdown' variable in 'Software WinRAR Policy' registry key allows to disable "Turn PC off when done" option for security reasons. Read "Configuration settings/Registry variables" for more details.
  • Better shell extension performance. Now WinRAR context menu will be more responsive when working with thousands of selected files.
  • Improved compatibility with high DPI Windows display mode.
  • Bugs fixed:
  • WinRAR could fail to open tar or tar.gz archive if such archive contained a file larger than 8 GB;
  • WinRAR context menu did not work properly in Windows 7 beta if icons in context menus were enabled and user clicked a file inside of Windows 7 Library folder;
  • previous WinRAR versions failed to rename files having 5 or more continuous spaces in the name. WinRAR shell does not display such spaces for safety reasons, because they can hide an actual file extension. But this security measure prevented the rename command to work properly.

New in WinRAR 3.80 Stable (Oct 15, 2008)

  • Added support for ZIP archives containing Unicode file names in UTF-8 format. When creating ZIP archive, WinRAR stores names in Unicode only if they cannot be stored correctly using the current single byte character set.
  • Added decompression support for WinZip AES encrypted ZIP archives.
  • Improved Unicode support for RAR and ZIP archive names.
  • "Ask before overwrite" and "Skip existing files" update modes are now available in archiving dialog. They allow to specify WinRAR behavior when updating already existing files in archive. Unlike already available "Fresh existing files only" and "Add and update files", these new modes ignore file date and compare only file names.
  • Command line equivalents of these modes are:
  • switch -o enables "Ask before overwrite" archiving mode;
  • switch -o- enables "Skip existing files" archiving mode;
  • switch -o+ enables "Overwrite all" mode (default for archiving).
  • New "Add to context menu" option in "Profile parameters" dialog. If this option is on, the profile name will be displayed in Explorer context menus allowing to activate a profile from context menu.
  • New -cp switch allows to select a compression profile in command line mode. It is supported only by GUI WinRAR.exe, not by rar.exe.
  • New "Options" page of archiving dialog contains the group of settings modifying the behavior of "Delete files after archiving" option from "General" page:
  • Delete files. Delete files normally like in previous WinRAR versions.
  • Move files to Recycle Bin. Deleted files are placed to Recycle Bin.
  • Command line equivalent of this option is -dr switch.
  • Wipe files. Before deleting file data are overwritten by zero bytes to prevent recovery of deleted files.
  • Command line equivalent of this option is -dw switch.
  • All these options have an effect only if "Delete files after archiving" is on. You can enable any of these options in the default compression profile to change the default behavior of "Delete files after archiving".
  • WinRAR "Extraction path and options" dialog is now resizable. You can use the mouse to drag its border to the desired size and provide more space for folder tree pane. WinRAR will store new dimensions of this dialog.
  • New "Update" SFX script command and "Update mode" group of options in "Update" page of "Advanced SFX options" dialog. These command and options allow to check time and implement file time based updating;
  • SFX script "Shortcut" command and "Add shortcut..." command in "Advanced SFX options" dialog now allow to specify an icon file containing an icon associated with shortcut.
  • New "Wipe temporary files" option in "Settings/Security" dialog provides more secure, though slower, way to delete temporary WinRAR files.
  • WinRAR and RAR display the total progress bar when unpacking a multivolume RAR archive if all volumes are present in the same folder.
  • WinRAR and RAR automatically expand names of environment variables in list files. For example, a list file can contain lines like:
  • %windir%*.exe
  • %USERPROFILE%Desktop
  • This feature is available only in Windows RAR version.
  • Added support of TAR archives with non-zero "extra field" data.
  • Added support of TAR archives, which does not contain the end of archive entry consisting of 512 zero bytes.
  • Improved Unicode support when dragging files from WinRAR window.
  • Shift+Tab key combination can be used in main WinRAR window to switch the input focus between interface elements (files, comment, tree, address) in reverse order. In previous versions Shift+Tab used the same order as Tab.
  • Corrected a possible WinRAR crash when opening truncated UDF ISO files.

New in WinRAR 3.80 Beta 2 (Jun 16, 2008)

  • beta 1 could display random garbage characters in context menu in Windows x64;
  • beta 1 could display only a part of files in tar.gz archives;
  • beta 1 could fail to set timestamps for files extracted from ZIP archives;
  • beta 1 could issue a rename error message and abort when creating RAR volumes with Unicode characters in archive name.

New in WinRAR 3.70 Beta 6 (Apr 3, 2007)

  • 1. Bugs corrected:
  • a) WinRAR shell did not allow to create recovery volumes for locked RAR volumes. Now the recovery volumes option is accessible for both locked and not locked RAR volumes;
  • b) WinRAR displayed incorrect sizes for files inside of UDF ISO archives if file size exceeded 4 GB. Such files were unpacked correctly, but their sizes in file list window were displayed wrong.

New in WinRAR 3.62 (Dec 4, 2006)

  • stack overflow vulnerability has been corrected in WinRAR module processing 7-Zip archives;
  • WinRAR GZip module could set a wrong file date when unpacking GZip archives.

New in WinRAR 3.50 (Feb 27, 2006)

  • Now it is possible to change WinRAR's look by installing interface themes. Theme files are RAR archives, just open them in WinRAR to install. You can manage installed themes using "Options/Themes" menu.
  • WinRAR supports decompression of ZIP archives created using Zip64 format extension. Zip64 was introduced to remove original ZIP format limitations on archived file size.
  • Added support of multivolume (multipart) CAB archives.
  • New options in "Advanced" part of extraction dialog: "Wait if other WinRAR copies are active" option in "Advanced" parts of archiving and extraction dialogs.
  • WinRAR is able to integrate to Windows context menus also on Windows x64 systems.
  • "Wizard" command allows to specify a password when creating or updating an archive.
  • New "Show encrypted or compressed NTFS files in color" option in "File list" page of "Settings" dialog.

New in WinRAR 3.51 (Feb 24, 2006)

  • fixed two vulnerabilities, which could be exploited with specially crafted ACE and UUE/XXE archives;
  • previous version did not delete some of temporary files;
  • WinRAR could crash when processing very long (more than 1024 characters) archive name parameter in the command line.