The situation may be especially familiar to iPad users: having amassed a sizeable DVD collection over the years, you wish to transfer your favourites over to your beloved Apple device. However, using an application to transfer the files has met with no success: instead of high definition video, you’re left with a group of useless RAR files. What are they, and how do you combine them to regain the video you wanted in the first place?
Files are written in RAR format when they need to be compressed – movie files on a DVD disk, for instance. When ripped to a computer, they are often separated out to make transportation easier, as it’s faster to transfer several small files than one big one. The task of putting them together, thankfully, can be done by third party software, such as UnRarX.
UnRarX is a programme without pretensions, existing for the sole purposes of reuniting separated RAR files. It is an open source Mac application, available from this link (http://www.unrarx.com/).
On opening, your first task is to choose where the RAR files should be extracted to. Once the destination has been selected, select ‘Browse’, on the right hand side of the toolbar. Predictably, this opens a Finder window, allowing you to easily select the troublesome files.
On selection, the app will immediately jump into action. The lines of code, appearing faster than they can be read, seem alarming, but merely indicate the basic nature of the programme – as it has only been designed to do this one job, there is no need for fancy graphics, so the code behind the process is not hidden. This code gives an indication of progress – the percentage complete is displayed at the end of each line.
When the process has finished, this will be indicated by the fact the code has stopped being written, and that the phrase ‘All OK’ is displayed at the bottom of the window (as shown above). Your dispersed RAR files have been combined, with a minimum of fuss, by a small, yet powerful, application.