How to try Windows 11 native RAR support

Here’s some good news: native support for additional archive formats has been introduced. With the integration of the open-source project libarchive, Windows 11 will start supporting a wider range of formats, including .tar, .tar.gz, .tar.bz2, .tar.zst, .tar.xz, .tgz, .tbz2, .tzst, .txz, .rar, .7z, and many others.

Speaking in a blog post while also announcing Copilot for Windows 11, Microsoft’s Panos Panay said that by embracing open-source projects like libarchive, Microsoft demonstrates its commitment to providing a comprehensive and user-friendly experience for Windows users.

It’s been a long time coming. After 30 years since the archive file format was launched to the world for the first time, we’re finally seeing the time when we could extract a RAR file on Windows 11 without any third-party tool like WinRAR.

Formats like TAR were added to the native RAR support in Windows Insider Build 23493.. The updates are now live.

Will WinRAR become a thing of the past once this update is rolled out?

That’s the question. We’re not sure yet – but one thing we know is that WinRAR can still be useful as it supports multithreaded CPU compression and decompression, and handle files of practically unlimited size. 

How to try Windows 11 native RAR support

1. Go to Settings.

2. Click on Windows Update.

3. Make sure it says You’re up to date. If not, click on Download to get the latest update.

Plenty of reasons why Windows had no native support for RAR files, but one of the main factors was related to licensing issues and the proprietary nature of the RAR format.

RAR is a proprietary archive format developed by WinRAR, and its use required licensing agreements to include support for it in operating systems or software.

What do you think about the native RAR support on Windows 11? Let us know in the comments!