How to open a .AR file online
No extra software to download or install.
Pick your .AR file
Drag it in or click to choose it. We read its contents list first, so it opens right away without unpacking everything.
Browse what's inside
See every file with its size, how much it's compressed and its date, and search by name across all the folders.
Preview or download
Click a file to preview text or images, or save just that one. Need everything? Download it all as a single ZIP.
About .AR files
What a .AR file is, and what's inside it.
An AR file is a Unix/Linux archive - a flat container that stores multiple files, most commonly compiled object files bundled into a static library. On Linux and macOS, extract it with the built-in ar command (ar x file.ar). On Windows, use 7-Zip. The format applies no compression and has no directory structure.
Programs that open .AR files
| Full name | Unix ar Archive |
|---|---|
| Developer | Bell Labs / various Unix vendors; GNU binutils ar (most common implementation) |
| First released | 1971 (Unix v1, as the original Unix archiver) |
| Category | Archives |
| MIME type | application/x-archive |
| Signature | 21 3C 61 72 63 68 3E 0A "!\n" (8 bytes) |
Related viewers
Found something inside the archive? Open it here.
Do I have to unpack the whole .AR file?
No. The viewer reads its table of contents first and only unpacks a file when you click it. That works even with multi-gigabyte archives, because we read just the bytes we need.
Can I open password-protected archives?
Yes, for ZIP (ZipCrypto and AES) and 7Z. You'll be asked for the password,. We can't recover forgotten passwords.
Is my .AR file uploaded anywhere?
No. The code that unpacks the file is downloaded once and then reused.
Why does a .docx or .apk open as an archive?
Because they are ZIP archives under the hood. Office documents, Android apps, Java programs and EPUB books all use ZIP as their container.
What about split archives (.001, .z01, .part1.rar)?
Multi-part archives need all their parts. Today you can open the first part to see the file list; joining parts is on our roadmap.
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