Privacy First
Uploaded files are automatically and permanently deleted within two hours.
Automatic deletion
Compress to RAR
Bundle documents, images or any other files into a single RAR archive in your browser, with the compression level a desktop WinRAR would use and an optional password
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Up to 50 files, any type: Drop documents, spreadsheets, images, code or videos together. They end up in one .rar with their original names, including non-Latin characters.
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Maximum compression: The archive is built with RAR 6.23 at the highest level (-m5) on four CPU threads. Text, documents and code shrink a lot; already compressed media shrinks little.
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Password if you want one: Open the expert settings before uploading to set a password. RAR then encrypts both the file contents and the file names with AES-256.
Password protect archive
Set an optional password to encrypt your archive before uploading your files.
Archive tool
How the RAR archive is created
RAR is a proprietary archive format, so unlike ZIP it cannot be written by most free tools. This page runs the original RAR command-line archiver on our servers, which is why the result opens anywhere a RAR file is expected.
How to use Converter App
1
Select the files
Drag them onto the upload area or click to pick several at once (Ctrl or Cmd click). Files larger than 100 MB in total are routed to a dedicated archiving worker.
2
The archive is packed
RAR reads the file list, compresses every file at level 5 using four threads and writes one RAR5 archive. A progress bar follows the archiver's own output.
3
Download the .rar
One uploaded file gives an archive with the same name and the .rar extension, several files give files.rar. It opens in WinRAR 5 or newer, 7-Zip, PeaZip, The Unarchiver and unrar.
Key features
RAR5 format
Archives use the current RAR 5.0 format with 64-bit sizes and AES-256 encryption. Very old extractors that only know RAR 4 (WinRAR before 2013) will not open them.
Real compression numbers
Plain text, CSV, logs and source code typically lose 60 to 85 percent of their size. Office documents, PDFs, JPEG, MP3 and MP4 are already compressed and lose 0 to 10 percent.
Flat archive
Browsers upload files, not folders, so the archive contains the files side by side without sub-folders. To keep a folder tree, zip the folder locally first and add that.
Private by default
Uploads and downloads run over TLS, nobody looks at the content, and the upload and the archive are deleted automatically two hours after the job.
Experience & privacy
Built for reliable file conversion.
Backed by 10+ years of engineering expertise in large-scale data and scientific computing, it’s built for real-world conversion workflows that require uncompromised quality, strict privacy, and reliable, high-level performance.
Trusted by Users
Rated 5 stars on Trustpilot for speed, reliability, and ease of use.
User trust
Academic Use
Referenced in published research and used for interview transcription and qualitative data analysis.
Research use
Measured on our servers
What to expect when converting Compress to RAR
Real numbers from every conversion on this tool since 24 October 2026. Nothing here is estimated: we record how long each job took and how large the files were. File names and contents are never stored.
1.0 s
Typical processing time
for a 16 MB file (median)
2,538
Conversions
since 24 October 2026
12.94 GB
Largest file converted
since 24 October 2026
≈ 1:1
Output size
about the same as the input
Expected time by file size
How long conversions take
share of all conversions
- under 1 s50%
- 1–10 s38%
- 10–60 s10%
- 1–5 min2%
- over 5 min<1%
Times are server processing only, measured after the upload finished; upload and download are not included. Large files take longer, but the limit is the same for everyone: no account, no queue priority to buy. Updated 2026-11-01
What a RAR archive actually is
RAR (Roshal Archive) was created by Eugene Roshal in 1993 and is still maintained by RARLAB. The format is proprietary: extracting is free and widely implemented, but creating a RAR archive requires the original archiver, which is why most online tools can only produce ZIP or 7z. The current version of the format, RAR 5.0, dates from 2013 and brought AES-256 encryption, 64-bit file sizes, BLAKE2 checksums and an optional recovery record.
This converter runs RAR 6.23 on the server. Its default output is a RAR5 archive, which is what every modern extractor expects.
What the compression level means
RAR offers levels from 0 (store) to 5 (best). We always use level 5 together with four worker threads. On a 10 MB folder of CSV exports this takes about a second and produces an archive of 1 to 2 MB. On a 500 MB video the same settings take a minute or two and save a few megabytes at most, because the video stream is already compressed by its codec.
- Text, CSV, JSON, XML, logs, source code: 60 to 85 percent smaller
- Uncompressed images (BMP, TIFF without compression) and WAV audio: 30 to 70 percent smaller
- DOCX, XLSX, PPTX, PDF: 0 to 15 percent smaller
- JPEG, PNG, MP3, MP4, MKV, existing ZIP or RAR: 0 to 3 percent smaller
Sending large attachments
Mail providers cap attachments at 20 to 25 MB, and many corporate gateways block executable files. Packing everything into one RAR solves both: a single attachment instead of twenty, names and structure preserved, and with a password the gateway cannot inspect the contents. If the archive is still too large for e-mail, upload it to a cloud drive and send the link; the archive keeps its integrity checks, so a damaged download is reported instead of silently producing broken files.
Limits of this tool
Up to 50 files per job, uploaded from a browser, so folders are flattened. The archive is not solid and not split into volumes, and no recovery record is added, which keeps every file independently extractable. Jobs over 100 MB are moved to a dedicated archiving server, so the progress bar may pause for a moment while the upload is handed over. Everything is deleted two hours after the job finishes. For the reverse direction, RAR to ZIP converts an existing archive without installing anything.
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
Why did my RAR archive barely shrink?
Because the files inside were already compressed. JPEG, PNG, MP4, MP3, DOCX, XLSX and PDF all contain compressed data streams, and a second compression pass finds almost nothing left to squeeze. Expect 0 to 10 percent on those, and 60 percent or more on text, CSV, logs, source code and uncompressed BMP or WAV. If the goal is a smaller video or image rather than an archive, use a dedicated compressor such as Compress Video.
Can I make an existing RAR file smaller?
Not by archiving it again: a RAR inside a RAR is the same size plus a few bytes of header. Extract the original archive on your computer, then upload the extracted files here. They are then packed at level 5, which is the strongest setting of the RAR archiver, so the new archive is as small as RAR can make it.
How do I compress a whole folder to RAR?
Open the folder on your computer, select all files inside (Ctrl+A or Cmd+A) and drag them onto the upload box. The archive then holds those files at its top level. Sub-folders are not uploaded by the browser, so a nested structure is only preserved if you first create a ZIP of the folder with your operating system and upload that ZIP as one of the files.
How does the password protection work?
Open the expert settings on this page before you upload and type a password. The archiver is called with the header-encryption option, so file names, sizes and contents are all encrypted with AES-256 and nobody can list the archive without the password. The password is used only for that one job and is not stored. Forgotten passwords cannot be recovered, by us or anyone else.
Which programs open the archive?
Any extractor that supports RAR5: WinRAR 5.0 and newer, 7-Zip, PeaZip, Bandizip, The Unarchiver and Keka on macOS, unrar and 7z on Linux, RAR and ZArchiver on Android. If someone reports that the file is corrupt, their extractor is usually an old version that only understands RAR 4.
Is RAR or ZIP the better choice?
RAR compresses text and documents 5 to 20 percent better than standard ZIP (Deflate), supports stronger encryption and handles archives over 4 GB without the ZIP64 extension. ZIP opens on every computer without extra software. For sending to people whose software you do not know, use Compress to ZIP; for the smallest possible archive or a password that also hides file names, use RAR.