A decent file archiver, compresses and extracts a variety of archive and file types!
7 Zip makes it easy to zip and unzip files from many different archive formats. But its true power comes in its ability to handle the more obscure ones. The RAR format, made popular by the shareware tool WinRAR, is one such. It is quite popular online, but the tool that popularized it wants you to buy it. that is where 7Zip comes to the rescue.
7 Zip is a file archive tool. An archive is a file that holds other files--much like a filing cabinet is a thing that holds other things. An archive sticks a bunch of files together and glues them together so they look like a single file, rather than a folder full of files. Archives also often offer compression of the contents, which lets you reduce total file size. so if you have a bunch of documents, you might be able to reduce the size of the archive drastically from what the folder would be.
7-Zip is a free tool that understands these archives. think of it like a digital secretary. It knows how to file files away in the filing cabinet that is the archive, and it knows how to pull files from the filing cabinet.
It’s easy! First make sure that the program is installed. 7-Zip should automatically associate itself with the RAR files. Next, all you have to do is right click the archive and select either Extract... or Extract Here. Extract... Lets you choose where you want to put the files from the archive, while the Extract Here option tells 7Zip to dump the files into the same folder the archive is in.
If you want a little more power, you can open the 7-Zip application itself. Simply double click the archive and 7 Zip will launch. Here, you can select the files you want to extract from the folder, add more files to the archive, and change the destination folder where the files would go. You can also take a look at what is in the RAR file.
That’s easy too! Simply select the files you want to zip, right click and select Add to Archive. You will get a small popup version of 7 Zip that lets you choose the archive type. Toggle it to RAR, or whatever your preference is, an click OK. 7Zip will run through the files, report any problems, and then you will have a RAR file. See how nice 7-Zip is?