You are much likely to have a file in the format that comes with .rar extension. What is a RAR archive? Standing for Roshal Archive, RAR is a proprietary archive file format that supports data compression, error correction and file spanning. RAR algorithm features in reducing file size without affecting its original quality. For this reason, RAR files creation enables computer users to free up disk storage space and transfer data faster.
Files missing or corruption is always an annoying issue. What makes this issue more unacceptable is, a damaged or deleted RAR archive enclosing a bunch of important files. Relax, this post will provide a quick guide on repairing corrupted RAR files and recovering deleted RAR files.
Best Data Recovery for Windows and Mac
Restore RAR, ZIP, ISO and More Archives Easily
- Restore RAR files lost or deleted under different situations
- Repair damaged documents, videos, photos in RAR
- Recover RAR files from both internal and external disk
- Filter RAR files quickly by keyword, date created, file size, etc.
- Also retrieve archives in ZIP, ISO, etc.
- Repair MP4, MOV, MKV, AVI, etc, also repair photos
- Recover unsaved Word, Excel, PowerPoint documents
- Preview photos, videos and other recoverable documents
- Support recovery of 200+ formats (video, audio, photo, document, etc.)
- Save recovered files to local drive or cloud storage platforms
Free Download Windows 11/10/8/7 Free Download macOS 10.9 or later
Recommended Tool to Recover RAR File
Essentially, RAR files have little difference from any other data in normal formats. That’s why data recovery tools can come to the rescue in event of RAR archives corruption, lost or deletion.
Among a considerable number of RAR file retrieval programs in the market, Cisdem Data Recovery for Windows or Mac is highly recommended. This software is capable of restoring trash-emptied, permanently-deleted, formatted files or any other files lost because of various situations, also repair damaged videos, photos and documents in the RAR archive. It has the reputation for professional research teams and responsible customer service.
Highlights of Cisdem Data Recovery:
- Supports file recovery under different data loss situation
- Recover 200+ types of files (image, video, audio, document, archives, etc.), including RAR
- Repair damaged videos, photos, documents in the RAR file
- Repair corrupted videos in mp4, mov, avi, mkv, m4v and so on
- Support automatic repair of corrupted images and documents
- Recover data from internal/external hard drives and perform equally brilliant
- User-friendly interface and smooth operation
- High data recovery rate
- Preview files before recovery to pick the wanted ones only
- Filter recoverable items based on keyword, file size, data created and date modified
- Scan status loaded for resuming scanning at anytime
- Restore files to local drive or Cloud platform
Follow the instructions below to retrieve your RAR archives:
- Download and install Cisdem Data Recovery.
Free Download Windows 11/10/8/7 Free Download macOS 10.9 or later
- Select and scan the drive.
Go to Hardware Disk. All storage partitions detected by the program will be listed on its right panel. Select the exact drive where your RAR archive files lost, and click "Search for lost files" to initiate the scanning process.
- Preview and specify RAR files.
After scan completion, scan results will be displayed on the left panel based on different categories. Go to Type > Archives, to locate RAR files quickly, you can enter keyword in the search box.
- Recover RAR files to a safe location.
Select the RAR files and click "Recover" to undelete them into local drive or cloud storage platform.
Tips:
To recover corrupted video in a RAR, you can extract and upload the damaged videos to Video Repair tool, Cisdem will fix the damaged videos in batch.
To repair Word, Excel, Text or photos in a RAR, you can extract the files first, then start the scanning in Cisdem, it will auto repair these files during the Preview (double click the file to preview) process.
How to Repair Damaged RAR File (Online Free Incl.)?
There are many reasons causing RAR corruption, following are the common ones:
- The RAR opener cannot recognize the header file accurately
- Transfer error when downloading the RAR file
- Incomplete download of a RAR file
- Bad sector or physical damages of the hard disk where you save the RAR file
- Virus
- The RAR file is too large
Basing on these reasons, you are recommended to open the RAR file with another RAR viewer to make sure the file itself is corrupted or not. If damaged, in face of this challenge, 3 potential avenues are offered for fixing corrupted RAR archive files freely.
#1 Repair damaged RAR files by WinRAR
WinRAR is a reputable archiver and archive manager all over the world. The software is versatile enough not only to compress, package, encrypt, backup files on your computer, but also read the contents of a RAR file without extraction. Its built-in file repair function is possible a useful way to get your corrupt RAR files back to their normal state.
See the step-by-step guide as follows:
- Download and install WinRAR on your PC.
- Locate the corrupt RAR file. Right-click on it and choose "Open with WinRAR".
- Click "Tools" at the toolbar and select "Repair archive" from the drop-down menu.
- In the pop-up window, click "Browse" to select a destination location for saving the repaired RAR file. Keep the archive type as RAR and click OK to start repairing.
- Within a few seconds, the corrupt RAR file will be recreated completely. Click the "Close" button.
- Go to the destination location you selected earlier. The name of your repaired RAR file will be "rebuilt.file name.rar".
tips: If by any chance the damaged RAR file cannot be repaired, it indicates that “Recovery Records” option has not been added during file compression with WinRAR. In this instance, Cisdem Data Recovery can be tried to recover the irreparable RAR file.
#2 Force extract corrupted RAR files
To deal with RAR file corruption and damage, force extracting the archive files while overlooking the error messages could be another approach. WinRAR app will still be used here.
How do I extract corrupted RAR files?
- Right click on the corrupted RAR archive > select "Open with" > WinRAR archiver.
- From WinRAR tool bar, choose "Extract to" option.
- The Extraction path and options window will pop up. Choose a destination path to store the extracted RAR file.
- Tick "Keep broken files" option under Miscellaneous section.
- Select OK button to start the extraction of your broken RAR archive file. Ignore any error messages if popping up. Finally check to see if you can access to the extracted file.
#3 Fix damaged RAR file online free
In addition to archive repair software, you may as well find some online RAR files repair websites. "https://online.officerecovery.com/" is such a website for your reference. Here’s the tutorial about using this website to repair your RAR archive.
- Input "https://online.officerecovery.com/" in the address bar of your browser and press Enter.
- Click "Choose File" button to choose the damaged RAR file from your computer.
- Click "Secure Upload and Repair" to start the repairing procedure.
- A progress bar will appear to report the repairing completion degree of your RAR file.
- After repairing finished, download the repaired file to your computer. Now you get a new normal RAR file.
What is noteworthy is that this RAR file repair path is not secure even though it’s simple.
Tips to Prevent RAR Files Corruption
As an old proverb goes, a fall into the pit, a gain in your wit. After feeling frustrated about corrupted RAR files and searching hard for solution, it would be wiser for you to take some precautions for avoiding RAR archive corruption in days to come. Check the tips below:
- Apply formal and official RAR compression/extraction programs only.
- Do not download RAR archive files from insecure websites.
- Check internet connect and device battery before downloading to avoid incomplete download
- Install a reliable anti-virus application on your computer and keep updating its latest version.
- Avoid unrestrained use of your computer.
- Check disk performance and repair in time
How to Recover Deleted or Lost RAR Files?
There are also many reasons why we get a RAR file deleted or lost, by mistake, formatting, hard disk error, etc. In the past, we may have to pay expensively for a professional data recovery service, but now we have multiple quick ways to recover the files ourselves, at no cost. There are 2 ways for you.
#1 Recover deleted RAR files from Windows Recycle Bin or Mac Trash Bin
The first place you should check is Windows Recycle Bin or Mac Trash Bin if RAR files are missing. Here we perform RAR archive files recovery from Windows Recycle Bin. If you are a Mac user, recovery steps in Trash Bin are quite similar to the following contents for your information.
- Open the Recycle bin by double clicking its icon on the desktop.
- Right-click on the RAR file and choose "Restore" option. Then it will be returned to its original location. You can also drag the item out of Recycle Bin to save it to any location you like.
However, if the bin was cleared either manually or automatically when it got too full, or if you deleted your RAR archives directly instead of recycling them (perhaps pressing Shift+Delete rather than just Delete key), the chances of recovering them from Trash Bin/Recycle Bin are greatly reduced.
In this case you are obliged to turn to Cisdem Data Recovery introduced earlier for recovering permanently deleted RAR archive files. Besides, once any RAR file backups are accessible, you can also refer to the third method covered subsequently.
#2 Recover Lost RAR files from Previous Versions
Restoring RAR files from earlier versions can be also easy if you have enabled File History on Windows, or Time Machine on Mac. With these options, your computer will save a copy of the lost/deleted RAR archives so that you can get them back easily.
How to recover deleted RAR files from PC?
- Connect the backup disk to your PC.
- Open the folder where the RAR archive file was saved > right click on its blank area.
- Choose Properties from the drop-down list.
- Then look through the list of previous versions of this folder > choose and open one recent version to confirm if it contains the RAR file you need > click Restore button to convert it back to its original location.
How to recover deleted RAR files from Mac?
- Connect the backup hard disk to your Mac.
- Enter Time Machine.
- Go to the folder where you stored the RAR files, all the versions of the deleted RAR files will be listed in timeline.
- Select the wanted version of your deleted RAR file, click Restore.
Final Words
Corrupted RAR files and deleted RAR files are totally 2 different things, you need different solutions to fix or restore the file. And it is always helpful to have Cisdem Data Recovery loaded onto your computer, it recovers deleted and lost RAR files, also recovers corrupted documents, videos or photos in a RAR.
Delia Wright
You are right. Online or free RAR repair tools are mostly not reliable. But in contrast, WinRAR is a worthwhile application to deal with corrupted RAR archives.