Unpacking and Creating RAR files on Mac OS X

RAR files are a files that have been compressed with the RAR engine, a proprietary format (ya know, like .SIT format). Since I've seem in forums around the net that even Windoze users have problems dealing with RAR files, I imagine many Mac users do too.

I've tested all the freeware solutions to unpack .RAR files, and the only one that always works is UnrarX. Don't forget to check if your RAR file is password protected, because the program asks for it in the beginning but if you ignore that, it will try to unpack the file anyway and only give a message error in the end.

Creating a .RAR file is usually reserved to shareware applications, even on Windows. The only app that does it for free is Gumby, as far as I know (and after a lot of researching). Gumby is a great utility that does so many things you'll have to download the manual (it's a PDF in the main page - there's a link) to learn all about it. To create a .RAR file, just go to the 'RAR' tab and press Alt (Option), and the button will change from 'Process' (for unpacking files) to 'Create'.