SimplyRAR For Mac

Data compression is very important whenever you need to share or backup different documents and files. The Mac OS X Archive Utility cannot deal with RAR archives, which makes using a third party application necessary.

SimplyRAR is a very small and easy to use application that enables you to expand RAR archives or create new ones. SimplyRAR is not currently under development and requires at least Mac OS X 10.4 to run, but is also working on more recent operating systems, such as Mountain Lion.

SimplyRAR comes with drag and drop support (you can drop the RAR archive on top of the SimplyRAR dock icon), but also places an entry in your contextual menu (press right click to send the archive to SimplyRAR). In the SimplyRAR main window you can locate the “Open RAR” button in the top toolbar.

SimplyRAR is also able to open Par2 archives which will prove to be very useful when you need to recover lost data from a multi-part archive. SimplyRAR can generate Par2 files.

SimplyRAR can compress RAR archives on its own: simply drag and drop the files you want to include in the RAR on top of the main window. From the bottom area of the main window you can select the compression method: store, fastest, fast, normal, good or best.

Optionally, you can delete the files after compression, test the archived files, lock or split the archive, password protect it or include your own comment. The SimplyRAR is quite intuitive which is essential, considering the application does not provide any kind of support documentation.

SimplyRAR is intended to decompress and create RAR archives, but the application had issues when unarchiving (could not open RAR archives that worked properly with other decompression utilities). At the same time, creating a new archive took a lot of time and over 90% of the CPU power throughout the entire process.