RAR is a file format which is used to compress and archive multiple files together. Let's see one of its use cases. Say, for example, you want to send two PDF ebooks and an MP3 soundtrack to your friend using email. Rather than attaching each file individually, you can pack the files together into a single RAR archive file then send it through email. Not only it helps you keep multiple files together, it reduces the total file size too.
How to open RAR files? You can open RAR files by using softwares such as WinRAR(commercial), 7-ZIP(free), PeaZip(free), and some other GUI and command-line utilities. If you don't want to download and install any software, you can use Google Drive Viewer to open RAR files.
Using Google Drive, you can also open ZIP files (ZIP is another popular data compression format). You just have to keep your RAR or ZIP files in Google Drive and open it. Although it's very simple to do, we will show you the steps required to do it (with pictures).
Steps to open RAR files:
1) Upload your RAR file in Google Drive. If you want to just see the preview of the contents, you can click once on the file name. To download individual files contained in the RAR archive, you will have to right-click on the file name and open it with Google Drive Viewer.
2) After the RAR archive has been opened, you can see the individual files. Now, if you take the mouse over any row of the list showing the contents, you can see that a clickable triangle appears on the extreme right side. Click on the triangle to see what you can do with the file.
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