Compress and decompress large files via WinRAR to save on your computer or share over the Internet.
No matter how much space there is on your PC, it’s never enough to use. There are some large files that we cannot send over the Internet. At this time, you need to use WinRAR’s compression technology to reduce the file size.
WinRAR is one of the best third-party software out there for compression and decompression. This article will introduce how to use WinRAR on Windows 11.
Before introducing how to use WinRAR, install WinRAR first.
Download and install WinRAR on Windows 11
Visit the WinRAR official website: win-rar.com/download, and click the “Download” button on the webpage.
After the WinRAR download is complete, double-click the .EXE file you just downloaded to run the installer package on your PC.
The UAC (User Account Control) window will appear on your screen. If you are not logged in with an administrator account, enter a credential. Or click the “Yes” button.
Click the “Install” button in the installer window to start installing WinRAR.
On the setup screen of the installer, click the “Toggle all” button under the “Associate WinRAR with” section to select the file types to open with WinRAR. Click the checkbox in front of the “Add WinRAR to the desktop” option to create a desktop shortcut for WinRAR, then click the “OK” button.
Click the “Finish” button to complete the WinRAR installation process.
Compress files with WinRAR
You can now use WinRAR to compress or decompress large files and folders.
Find the file/filegroup to compress. Select multiple files, press CTRL on the keyboard and click the files with the left mouse button. Hold down the right mouse button and hover over the selected file to display the context menu. Hover over the “WinRAR” option to expand it and select “Add to Archive”.
In the opened WinRAR window, in “Archive name” give the file a name. Click the Browse button to create the location where the compressed folder will be saved.
Under the “Archive format” section, select the archive type. WinRAR supports the “ZIP” format, RAR is a proprietary method that requires third-party software to decompress files.
Click the drop-down menu under the Compression Method field. Choose “Fastest”, which will create an archive of the selected files/folders in a very short time, but has the disadvantage of not providing much compression. Selecting the “Best” option will provide excellent compression, but will be slow. So choose one of the options according to your needs.
If you need to split the volume into equal partitions, click the drop-down menu under the Split into volumes, size field and select a base unit from the B, KB, MB, or GB options. Enter a number in the text box to the left of the base unit option.
You can also click the “Set Password” button to add a password to it to protect the compressed folder.
Then click the “OK” button.
Extract files from compressed folder
It can also be easily decompressed using the WinRAR software.
Right-click on the zip file you want to extract to display the context menu. Then, from the context menu, hover over the “WinRAR” file to open the submenu and click on the “Extract File” option.
On the right side of the window, click the directory where you want to extract the files. By default, the extracted files will be stored in the same directory as the compressed folder.
You can also click the checkbox in front of the “display files in Explorer” option under the “Miscellaneous” section, and the directory will be opened automatically after the WinRAR extraction is complete. Then click the “OK” button in the lower right corner to start extracting the files.
WinRAR’s extraction window will display the progress of the extracted files and the approximate time to complete.
If you choose to show files in Explorer after extraction, a File Explorer window will open with the directory containing all extracted files and folders.
Extract some files from the compressed folder
In addition to extracting all folders, using WinRAR it is also possible to extract selected files or individual files from compressed folders. Here’s how to extract selected files from WinRAR:
Double-click the compressed folder to view its contents.
Select the files you want to extract. Right-click on the selected file to display the context menu. Click the Extract to Specified Folder option.
Select the directory to extract the files from. Then, click the OK button at the bottom of the window.
The selected files will appear where you chose to unzip them.
That’s all about how to use WinRAR on Windows 11 to compress and decompress large files. Use WinRAR can easily help you store large files and share them on the Internet.
