unar

Universal multi-format archive extractor

TLDR

Extract archive

$ unar [archive.zip]

Extract to directory

$ unar -o [output_dir] [archive.rar]

Extract with password

$ unar -p [password] [encrypted.zip]

Force overwrite

$ unar -f [archive.zip]

Extract without directory

$ unar -D [archive.tar.gz]

List contents only

$ lsar [archive.7z]

Extract specific encoding

$ unar -e [shift_jis] [japanese.zip]

SYNOPSIS

unar [-o dir] [-p password] [-e encoding] [options] archive

unar extracts archives of many formats. It handles Zip, RAR, 7-Zip, tar, gzip, bzip2, ISO, and many legacy formats.Format detection is automatic. The tool examines archive contents rather than relying solely on extensions.Encoding handling processes international filenames correctly. Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and other encodings are supported and auto-detected.Password handling works for encrypted archives. Both header-encrypted and content-encrypted formats are supported.The tool handles broken or non-standard archives that other extractors reject. It attempts to recover what it can.By default, archives extract to a directory named after the archive. This can be controlled with -d or -D options.

PARAMETERS

-o DIR

Output directory.

-p PASSWORD

Archive password.

-e ENCODING

Filename encoding.

-f, --force

Overwrite without asking.

-D, --no-directory

Don't create containing directory.

-d, --directory

Always create directory.

-k MODE

How to handle existing files.

-q, --quiet

Quiet mode.

-t, --test

Test archive.

-nr, --no-recursion

Don't extract nested archives.

-h, --help

Show help.

INSTALL

sudo apt install unar

sudo dnf install unar

sudo zypper install unar

brew install unar

nix profile install nixpkgs#unar

CAVEATS

Not installed by default. Some formats have limited metadata support. Very old formats may have quirks.

HISTORY

unar is part of The Unarchiver, created by Dag Ågren starting around 2006. Originally a macOS GUI application, command-line tools were added later for scripting.