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User's Manual ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ RAR 7.12 console version ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Welcome to the RAR Archiver! -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Introduction ~~~~~~~~~~~~ RAR is a console application allowing to manage archive files in command line mode. RAR provides compression, encryption, data recovery and many other functions described in this manual. RAR supports only RAR format archives, which have .rar file name extension by default. ZIP and other formats are not supported. Even if you specify .zip extension when creating an archive, it will still be in RAR format. Windows users may install WinRAR, which supports more archive types including RAR and ZIP formats. WinRAR provides both graphical user interface and command line mode. While console RAR and GUI WinRAR have the similar command line syntax, some differences exist. So it is recommended to use this rar.txt manual for console RAR (rar.exe in case of Windows version) and winrar.chm WinRAR help file for GUI WinRAR (winrar.exe). Configuration file ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ RAR and UnRAR for Unix systems read configuration information from .rarrc file in a user's home directory (stored in HOME environment variable) or in /etc directory. RAR and UnRAR for Windows read configuration information from rar.ini file, placed in the same directory as the rar.exe file. This file can contain the following string: switches=<any RAR switches separated by spaces> For example: switches=-m5 -s It is also possible to specify separate switch sets for individual RAR commands using the following syntax: switches_<command>=<any RAR switches separated by spaces> For example: switches_a=-m5 -s switches_x=-o+ Environment variable ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Default parameters may be added to the RAR command line by establishing an environment variable "RARINISWITCHES". For instance, in Unix systems following lines may be added to your profile: RARINISWITCHES='-s -md1024' export RARINISWITCHES RAR will use this string as default parameters in the command line and will create "solid" archives with 1024 MB sliding dictionary size. RAR handles options with priority as following: command line switches highest priority switches in the RARINISWITCHES variable lower priority switches saved in configuration file lowest priority Log file ~~~~~~~~ If switch -ilog is specified in the command line or configuration file, RAR will write informational messages about errors encountered while processing archives into a log file. Read the switch -ilog description for more details. The file order list for solid archiving - rarfiles.lst ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ rarfiles.lst contains a user-defined file list, which tells RAR the order in which to add files to a solid archive. It may contain file names, wildcards and special entry - $default. The default entry defines the place in order list for files not matched with other entries in this file. The comment character is ';'. In Windows this file should be placed in the same directory as RAR or in %APPDATA%\WinRAR directory, in Unix systems - to the user's home directory or in /etc. Tips to provide improved compression and speed of operation: - similar files should be grouped together in the archive; - frequently accessed files should be placed at the beginning. Normally masks placed nearer to the top of list have a higher priority, but there is an exception from this rule. If rarfiles.lst contains such two masks that all files matched by one mask are also matched by another, that mask which matches a smaller subset of file names will have higher priority regardless of its position in the list. For example, if you have *.cpp and f*.cpp masks, f*.cpp has a higher priority, so the position of 'filename.cpp' will be chosen according to 'f*.cpp', not '*.cpp'. RAR command line syntax ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Syntax RAR <command> [ -<switches> ] <archive> [ <@listfiles...> ] [ <files...> ] [ <path_to_extract\> ] Description Command is a single character or string specifying an action to be performed by RAR. Switches are designed to modify the way RAR performs such action. Other parameters are archive name and files to be archived or extracted. Listfiles are plain text files containing names of files to process. File names must start at the first column. It is possible to put comments to the listfile after // characters. For example, you can create backup.lst containing the following strings: c:\work\doc\*.txt //backup text documents c:\work\image\*.bmp //backup pictures c:\work\misc and then run: rar a backup @backup.lst If you wish to read file names from stdin (standard input), specify the empty listfile name (just @). By default, console RAR uses the single byte encoding in list files, but it can be redefined with -sc<charset>l switch. You can specify both usual file names and list files in the same command line. If neither files nor listfiles are specified, then *.* is implied and RAR will process all files. path_to_extract includes the destination directory name followed by a path separator character. For example, it can be c:\dest\ in Windows or data/ in Unix systems. It specifies the directory to place extracted files in 'x' and 'e' commands. This directory is created by RAR if it does not exist yet. Alternatively it can be set with -op<path> switch. Many RAR commands, such as extraction, test or list, allow to use wildcards in archive name. If no extension is specified in archive mask, RAR assumes .rar, so * means all archives with .rar extension. If you need to process all archives without extension, use *. mask. *.* mask selects all files. Wildcards in archive name are not allowed when archiving and deleting. In Unix systems you need to enclose RAR command line parameters containing wildcards in single or double quotes to prevent their expansion by Unix shell. For example, this command will extract *.asm files from all *.rar archives in current directory: rar e '*.rar' '*.asm' Command could be any of the following: a Add files to archive. Examples: 1) add all *.hlp files from the current directory to the archive help.rar: rar a help *.hlp 2) archive all files from the current directory and subdirectories to 362000 bytes size solid, self-extracting volumes and add the recovery record to each volume: rar a -r -v362 -s -sfx -rr save Because no file names are specified, all files (*) are assumed. 3) as a special exception, if directory name is specified as an argument and if directory name does not include file masks and trailing path separator, the entire contents of the directory and all subdirectories will be added to the archive even if switch -r is not specified. The following command will add all files from the directory Bitmaps and its subdirectories to the RAR archive Pictures.rar: rar a Pictures.rar Bitmaps 4) if directory name includes the trailing path separator, normal rules apply and you need to specify switch -r to process its subdirectories. The following command will add all files from directory Bitmaps, but not from its subdirectories, because switch -r is not specified: rar a Pictures.rar Bitmaps\* c Add archive comment. Comments are displayed while the archive is being processed. Comment length is limited to 256 KB. Examples: rar c distrib.rar Also comments may be added from a file using -z[file] switch. The following command adds a comment from info.txt file: rar c -zinfo.txt dummy ch Change archive parameters. This command can be used with most of archive modification switches to modify archive parameters. It is especially convenient for switches like -cl, -cu, -tl, which do not have a dedicated command. It is not able to recompress, encrypt or decrypt archive data and it cannot merge or create volumes. If no switches are specified, 'ch' command just copies the archive data without modification. If used with -amr switch to restore the saved archive name and time, other archive modification switches are ignored. Example: Set archive time to latest file: rar ch -tl files.rar cw Write archive comment to specified file. Format of output file depends on -sc switch. If output file name is not specified, comment data will be sent to stdout. Examples: 1) rar cw arc comment.txt 2) rar cw -scuc arc unicode.txt 3) rar cw arc d Delete files from archive. If this command removes all files from archive, the empty archive is removed. e Extract files without archived paths. Extract files excluding their path component, so all files are created in the same destination directory. Use 'x' command if you wish to extract full pathnames. Example: rar e -or html.rar *.css css\ extract all *.css files from html.rar archive to 'css' directory excluding archived paths. Rename extracted files automatically in case several files have the same name. f Freshen files in archive. Updates archived files older than files to add. This command will not add new files to the archive. i[i|c|h|t]=<string> Find string in archives. Supports following optional parameters: i - case insensitive search (default); c - case sensitive search; h - hexadecimal search; t - use ANSI, UTF-8, UTF-16 and OEM (Windows only) character tables; If no parameters are specified, it is possible to use the simplified command syntax i<string> instead of i=<string> It is allowed to specify 't' modifier with other parameters, for example, ict=string performs case sensitive search using all mentioned above character tables. Examples: 1) rar "ic=first level" -r c:\*.rar *.txt Perform case sensitive search of "first level" string in *.txt files in *.rar archives on the disk c: 2) rar ih=f0e0aeaeab2d83e3a9 -r e:\texts\*.rar Search for hex string f0 e0 ae ae ab 2d 83 e3 a9 in rar archives in e:\texts directory. k Lock archive. RAR cannot modify locked archives, so locking important archives prevents their accidental modification by RAR. Such protection might be especially useful in case of RAR commands processing archives in groups. This command is not intended or able to prevent modification by other tools or willful third party. It implements a safety measure only for accidental data change by RAR. Example: rar k final.rar l[t[a],b] List archive contents [technical [all], bare]. 'l' command lists archived file attributes, size, date, time and name, one file per line. If file is encrypted, line starts from '*' character. 'lt' displays the detailed file information in multiline mode. This information includes file checksum value, host OS, compression options and other parameters. 'lta' provide the detailed information not only for files, but also for service headers like NTFS streams or file security data. 'lb' lists bare file names with path, one per line, without any additional information. You can use -v switch to list contents of all volumes in volume set: rar l -v vol.part1.rar Commands 'lt', 'lta' and 'lb' are equal to 'vt', 'vta' and 'vb' correspondingly. m[f] Move to archive [files only]. Moving files and directories results in the files and directories being erased upon successful completion of the packing operation. Directories will not be removed if 'f' modifier is used and/or '-ed' switch is applied. p Print file to stdout. Send unpacked file data to stdout. Informational messages are suppressed with this command, so they are not mixed with file data. r Repair archive. Archive repairing is performed in two stages. First, the damaged archive is searched for a recovery record (see 'rr' command). If archive contains the previously added recovery record and if damaged data area is continuous and smaller than error correction code size in recovery record, chance of successful archive reconstruction is high. When this stage has been completed, a new archive is created, named as fixed.arcname.rar, where 'arcname' is the original (damaged) archive name. If broken archive does not contain a recovery record or if archive is not completely recovered due to major damage, second stage is performed. During this stage only the archive structure is reconstructed and it is impossible to recover files which fail checksum validation, it is still possible, however, to recover undamaged files, which were inaccessible due to the broken archive structure. Mostly this is useful for non-solid archives. This stage is never efficient for archives with encrypted file headers, which can be repaired only if recovery record is present. When the second stage is completed, the reconstructed archive is saved as rebuilt.arcname.rar, where 'arcname' is the original archive name. By default, repaired archives are created in the current directory, but you can append an optional destpath\ parameter to specify another destination directory. Example: rar r buggy.rar c:\fixed\ repair buggy.rar and place the result to 'c:\fixed' directory. rc Reconstruct missing and damaged volumes using recovery volumes (.rev files). You need to specify any existing .rar or .rev volume as the archive name. Example: rar rc backup.part03.rar Read 'rv' command description for information about recovery volumes. rn Rename archived files. The command syntax is: rar rn <arcname> <srcname1> <destname1> ... <srcnameN> <destnameN> For example, the following command: rar rn data.rar readme.txt readme.bak info.txt info.bak will rename readme.txt to readme.bak and info.txt to info.bak in the archive data.rar. It is allowed to use wildcards in the source and destination names for simple name transformations like changing file extensions. For example: rar rn data.rar *.txt *.bak will rename all *.txt files to *.bak. RAR does not check if the destination file name is already present in the archive, so you need to be careful to avoid duplicated names. It is especially important when using wildcards. Such a command is potentially dangerous, because a wrong wildcard may corrupt all archived names. rr[N] Add the data recovery record. Recovery record is the data area, optionally added to archive and containing error correction codes, namely Reed-Solomon codes for RAR 5.0 archive format. While it increases the archive size, it helps to recover archived files in case of disk failure or data loss of other kind, provided that damage is not too severe. Such recovery can be done with 'R' repair command. Optional 'N' parameter defines the recovery record size as a percent of archive size. If it is omitted, 3% is assumed. Maximum allowed recovery record size is 1000%. Larger recovery records are processed slower both when creating and repairing. Due to service data overhead, the actual resulting recovery record size only approximately matches the user defined percent and difference is larger for smaller archives. In case of a single continuous damage, typically it is possible to restore slightly less data than recovery record size. Recoverable data size can be lower for multiple damages. If a recovery record is partially broken, its remaining valid data still can be utilized to repair files. Repair command does not fix broken blocks in recovery record itself, only file data is corrected. After successful archive repair, you may need to create a new recovery record for rescued files. While the recovery record improves chances to repair damaged archives, it does not guarantee the successful recovery. Consider combining the recovery record feature with making multiple archive copies to different media for important data. Example: rar rr5 arcname add the recovery record of 5% of archive size. rv[N] Create recovery volumes (.rev files), which can be later used to reconstruct missing and damaged files in a volume set. This command makes sense only for multivolume archives and you need to specify the name of the first volume in the set as the archive name. For example: rar rv3 data.part01.rar This feature may be useful for backups or, for example, when you posted a multivolume archive to a newsgroup and a part of subscribers did not receive some of the files. Reposting recovery volumes instead of usual volumes may reduce the total number of files to repost. Each recovery volume is able to reconstruct one missing or damaged RAR volume. For example, if you have 30 volumes and 3 recovery volumes, you are able to reconstruct any 3 missing volumes. If the number of .rev files is less than the number of missing volumes, reconstructing is impossible. The total number of usual and recovery volumes must not exceed 65535. Original RAR volumes must not be modified after creating recovery volumes. Recovery algorithm uses data stored both in REV files and in RAR volumes to rebuild missing RAR volumes. So if you modify RAR volumes, for example, lock them, after creating REV files, recovery process will fail. Additionally to recovery data, RAR 5.0 recovery volumes also store service information such as checksums of protected RAR files. So they are slightly larger than RAR volumes which they protect. If you plan to copy individual RAR and REV files to some removable media, you need to take it into account and specify RAR volume size by a few kilobytes smaller than media size. The optional <N> parameter specifies a number of recovery volumes to create. It must not be larger than tenfold amount of RAR volumes. Values exceeding the threshold are adjusted automatically. You may also append a percent or 'p' character to this parameter, in such case the number of creating .rev files will be equal to this percent taken from the total number of RAR volumes. For example: rar rv15% data.part01.rar If <N> parameter is omitted, it is set to 10%. RAR reconstructs missing and damaged volumes either when using 'rc' command or automatically, if it cannot locate the next volume and finds the required number of .rev files when unpacking. Original copies of damaged volumes are renamed to *.bad before reconstruction. For example, volname.part03.rar will be renamed to volname.part03.rar.bad. s[name] Convert archive to SFX. The archive is merged with a SFX module (using a module in file default.sfx or specified in the switch). In Windows version default.sfx should be placed in the same directory as the rar.exe, in Unix systems - in the user's home directory, in /usr/lib or /usr/local/lib. Windows version uses default32.sfx name for 32-bit SFX module. s- Remove SFX module from the already existing SFX archive. RAR creates a new archive without SFX module, the original SFX archive is not deleted. t Test archive files. This command performs a dummy file extraction, writing nothing to the output stream, in order to validate the specified file(s). Examples: Test archives in current directory: rar t * or for Unix systems: rar t '*' User may test archives in all sub-directories, starting with the current path: rar t -r * or for Unix systems: rar t -r '*' u Update files in archive. Adds files not yet in the archive and updates archived files that are older than files to add. v[t[a],b] Verbosely list archive contents [technical [all], bare]. 'v' command lists archived file attributes, size, packed size, compression ratio, date, time, checksum and name, one file per line. If file is encrypted, line starts from '*' character. For BLAKE2sp checksum only two first and one last symbol are displayed. 'vt' displays the detailed file information in multiline mode. This information includes file checksum value, host OS, compression options and other parameters. 'vta' provide the detailed information not only for files, but also for service headers like NTFS streams or file security data. 'vb' lists bare file names with path, one per line, without any additional information. You can use -v switch to list contents of all volumes in volume set: rar v -v vol.part1.rar Commands 'vt', 'vta' and 'vb' are equal to 'lt', 'lta' and 'lb' correspondingly. x Extract files with full path. Examples: 1) extract 10cents.txt to current directory not displaying the archive comment rar x -c- dime 10cents.txt 2) extract *.txt from docs.rar to c:\docs directory rar x docs.rar *.txt c:\docs\ 3) extract the entire contents of docs.rar to current directory rar x docs.rar Switches (used in conjunction with a command): -? Display help on commands and switches. Same as none or illegal command line option are entered. -- Stop switches scanning This switch tells to RAR that there are no more switches in the command line. It could be useful, if either archive or file name starts from '-' character. Without '--' switch such a name would be treated as a switch. Example: add all files from the current directory to the solid archive '-StrangeName' RAR a -s -- -StrangeName -@[+] Disable [enable] file lists RAR treats command line parameters starting from '@' character as file lists. So by default, RAR attempts to read 'filename' filelist, when encountering '@filename' parameter. But if '@filename' file exists, RAR treats the parameter as '@filename' file instead of reading the file list. Switch -@[+] allows to avoid this ambiguity and strictly define how to handle parameters starting from '@' character. If you specify -@, all such parameters found after this switch will be considered as file names, not file lists. If you specify -@+, all such parameters found after this switch will be considered as file lists, not file names. This switch does not affect processing parameters located before it. Example: test the archived file '@home' rar t -@ notes.rar @home -ac Clear Archive attribute after compression or extraction (Windows version only). If -ac is specified when archiving, "Archive" file attribute is cleared for successfully compressed files. When extracting, -ac will clear "Archive" attribute for extracted files. This switch does not affect directory attributes. -ad[1,2] Alternate destination path. This option may be useful when unpacking a group of archives. Switches -ad and -ad1 create a separate directory for files unpacked from each archive. These separate directories are created in destination directory for -ad and in each archive's directory for -ad1. Switch -ad2 places unpacked files directly to each archive's directory. Separate directories are not created. Destination directory parameter is ignored for -ad1 and -ad2 switches. Examples: 1) rar x -ad *.rar data\ RAR will create subdirectories below 'data' for every unpacking archive. 2) rar x -r -ad1 arc\*.rar RAR will recursively scan 'arc' directory for *.rar archives and create subdirectories in each archive's directory. -ag[format] Generate archive name using the current date and time. Appends the current date string to an archive name when creating or processing an archive. Useful for daily backups. Format of the appending string is defined by the optional "format" parameter or by "YYYYMMDDHHMMSS" if this parameter is absent. The format string may include the following characters: Y - year M - month MMM - month name as text string (Jan, Feb, etc.) W - a week number (a week starts with Monday) A - day of week number (Monday is 1, Sunday - 7) D - day of month E - day of year H - hours M - minutes (first two 'M' after hours treated as minutes) I - minutes (treated as minutes regardless of hours position) S - seconds N - archive number. RAR searches for already existing archive with generated name and if found, increments the archive number until generating a unique name. 'N' format character is not supported when creating volumes. When performing non-archiving operations like extracting, RAR selects the existing archive preceding the first unused name or sets N to 1 if no such archive exists. Each of format string characters listed above represents only one character added to archive name. For example, use WW for two digit week number or YYYY to define four digit year. If the first character in the format string is '+', positions of the date string and base archive name are exchanged, so a date will precede an archive name. If the first character in the format string is 'F', the rest of string specifies the default format string for -ag switch. Such -agf<default_format> switch has a practical value only if placed to rar.ini configuration file or RARINISWITCHES environment variable. For example, if we set RARINISWITCHES environment variable to -agfYYYY-MMM-DD, we can use -ag without a parameter with YYYY-MMM-DD format string assumed. The format string may contain optional text enclosed in '{' and '}' characters. This text is inserted into archive name. All other characters are added to an archive name without changes. If you need to process an already existing archive, be careful with -ag switch. Depending on the format string and time passed since previous -ag use, generated and existing archive names may mismatch. In this case RAR will create or open a new archive instead of processing the already existing one. You may use -log switch to write the generated archive name to a file and then read it from file for further processing. Examples: 1) use the default YYYYMMDDHHMMSS format rar a -ag backup 2) use DD-MMM-YY format rar t -agDD-MMM-YY backup 3) use YYYYMMDDHHMM format, place date before 'backup' rar a -ag+YYYYMMDDHHMM backup 4) use YYYY-WW-A format, include fields description rar a -agYYYY{year}-WW{week}-A{wday} backup 5) use YYYYMMDD and the archive number. It allows to generate unique names even when YYYYMMDD format mask used more than once in the same day rar a -agYYYYMMDD-NN backup -ai Ignore file attributes. If this switch is used when extracting, RAR does not set general file attributes stored in archive to extracted files. This switch preserves attributes assigned by operating system to a newly created file. If this switch is used when archiving, predefined values, typical for file and directory, are stored instead of actual attributes. In Windows it affects archive, system, hidden and read-only attributes. in Unix systems - user, group, and other file permissions. -am[s,r] Archive name and time [save, restore] Switch -ams preserves the archive metadata, which includes the original archive name and creation time. It can be used with archive modification commands, such as 'a' or 'ch'. Saved metadata is displayed in header of 'l' and 'v' archive list commands. If used together with -tk or -tl switches, -ams saves the archive modification time set by these switches. Switch -amr renames an archive to saved name. Also it sets the stored time as the archive creation and modification time in Windows and as the archive modification time in Unix systems. It can be used together with 'ch' command only, which ignores all other archive modification switches if -amr is specified. Switch -am without 's' and 'r' modifiers is treated as -ams. Examples: 1) create files.rar and save its metadata rar a -am files.rar 2) restore the original name of myfiles.rar rar ch -amr myfiles.rar -ao Add files with "Archive" attribute set (Windows version only). If -ao is used when archiving, only files with "Archive" file attribute will be added to archive. This switch does not affect directories, so all matching directories are added regardless of their attributes. You can also specify -ed switch if you prefer to omit all directory records. Example: add all disk C: files with "Archive" attribute set to the 'f:backup' and clear files "Archive" attribute rar a -r -ac -ao f:backup c:\*.* -ap<path> Set path inside archive. This path is merged to file names when adding files to an archive and removed from file names when extracting. For example, if you wish to add the file 'readme.txt' to the directory 'DOCS\ENG' of archive 'release', you may run: rar a -apDOCS\ENG release readme.txt or to extract 'ENG' to the current directory: rar x -apDOCS release DOCS\ENG\*.* -as Synchronize archive contents If this switch is used when archiving, those archived files which are not present in the list of the currently added files, will be deleted from the archive. It is convenient to use this switch in combination with -u (update) to synchronize contents of archive and archiving directory. For example, after the command: rar a -u -as backup sources\*.cpp the archive 'backup.rar' will contain only *.cpp files from directory 'sources', all other files will be deleted from the archive. It looks similar to creating a new archive, but with one important exception: if no files are modified since the last backup, the operation is performed much faster than the creation of a new archive. -cfg- Ignore configuration file and RARINISWITCHES environment variable. -cl Convert file names to lower case. -cu Convert file names to upper case. -c- Disable comments show. -df Delete files after archiving Move files to archive. This switch in combination with the command "A" performs the same action as the command "M". -dh Open shared files Allows to process files opened by other applications for writing. This switch helps if an application allowed read access to file, but if all types of file access are prohibited, the file open operation will still fail. This option could be dangerous, because it allows to archive a file, which at the same time is modified by another application, so use it carefully. -dr Delete files to Recycle Bin Delete files after archiving and place them to Recycle Bin. Available in Windows version only. -ds Do not sort files while adding to a solid archive. -dw Wipe files after archiving Delete files after archiving. Before deleting file data are overwritten by zero bytes to prevent recovery of deleted files, file is truncated and renamed to temporary name. Please be aware that such approach is designed for usual hard disks, but may fail to overwrite the original file data on solid state disks, as result of SSD wear leveling technology and more complicated data addressing. -ed Do not add empty directories This switch indicates that directory records are not to be stored in the created archive. When extracting such archives, RAR creates non-empty directories based on paths of files contained in them. Information about empty directories is lost. All attributes of non-empty directories except a name (access rights, streams, etc.) will be lost as well, so use this switch only if you do not need to preserve such information. If -ed is used with 'm' command or -df switch, RAR will not remove empty directories. -ep Exclude paths from names. This switch enables files to be added to an archive without including the path information. This could result in multiple files with the same name existing in the archive. If used when extracting, archived paths are ignored for extracted files, so all files are created in the same destination directory. -ep1 Exclude base dir from names. Do not store or extract the path entered in the command line. Ignored if path includes wildcards. Examples: 1) add all files and directories from 'tmp' directory to archive 'test', but exclude 'tmp\' from archived names path: rar a -ep1 -r test tmp\* This is an equivalent to commands: cd tmp rar a -r ..\test cd .. 2) extract files matching images\* mask to dest\ directory, but remove 'images\' from paths of created files: rar x -ep1 data images\* dest\ -ep2 Expand paths to full. Store full file paths (except the drive letter and leading path separator) when archiving. -ep3 Expand paths to full including the drive letter. Windows version only. This switch stores full file paths including the drive letter if used when archiving. Drive separators (colons) are replaced by underscore characters. If you use -ep3 when extracting, it will change underscores back to colons and create unpacked files in their original directories and disks. If the user also specified a destination path, it will be ignored. It also converts UNC paths from \\server\share to __server\share when archiving and restores them to the original state when extracting. This switch can help to backup several disks to the same archive. For example, you may run: rar a -ep3 -r backup.rar c:\ d:\ e:\ to create backup and: rar x -ep3 backup.rar to restore it. But be cautious and use -ep3 only if you are sure that extracting archive does not contain any malicious files. In other words, use it if you have created an archive yourself or completely trust its author. This switch allows to overwrite any file in any location on your computer including important system files and should normally be used only for the purpose of backup and restore. -ep4<path> Exclude the path prefix from names. If this switch is used when archiving, the specified path is excluded from archived names if it is found in the beginning of such name, but does not match the entire name. Comparison is performed with names already prepared to store in archive, with removed drive letters and leading path separators. For example: rar a -ep4texts\books archive c:\texts\books\technical removes "text\books" from archived names, so they start from 'technical'. Since comparison is performed with names, as they are stored in archive, we can't use -ep4c:\texts\books. If this switch is used when extracting, it works similarly to -ap<path> switch. Path is removed if it is present in the beginning of archived file name. For example: rar x -ep4texts\books archive removes 'texts\books' from those archived paths, which start from it. -e[+]<attr> Specifies file exclude or include attributes mask. <attr> is a number in the decimal, octal (with leading '0') or hex (with leading '0x') format. By default, without '+' sign before <attr>, this switch defines the exclude mask. So if result of bitwise AND between <attr> and file attributes is nonzero, file would not be processed. If '+' sign is present, it specifies the include mask. Only those files which have at least one attribute specified in the mask will be processed. In Windows version is also possible to use symbols D, S, H, A and R instead of a digital mask to denote directories and files with system, hidden, archive and read-only attributes. The order in which the attributes are given is not significant. Unix version supports D and V symbols to define directory and device attributes. It is allowed to specify both -e<attr> and -e+<attr> in the same command line. Examples: 1) archive only directory names without their contents rar a -r -e+d dirs 2) do not compress system and hidden files: rar a -esh files 3) do not extract read-only files: rar x -er files -f Freshen files. May be used with archive extraction or creation. The command string "a -f" is equivalent to the command 'f', you could also use the switch '-f' with the commands 'm' or 'mf'. If the switch '-f' is used with the commands 'x' or 'e', then only old files would be replaced with new versions extracted from the archive. -hp[p] Encrypt both file data and headers. This switch is similar to -p[pwd], but switch -p encrypts only file data and leaves other information like file names visible. This switch encrypts all sensitive archive areas including file data, file names, sizes, attributes, comments and other blocks, so it provides a higher security level. Without a password it is impossible to view even the list of files in archive encrypted with -hp. Example: rar a -hpfGzq5yKw secret report.txt will add the file report.txt to the encrypted archive secret.rar using the password 'fGzq5yKw' -ht[b|c] Select hash type [BLAKE2,CRC32] for file checksum. File data integrity in RAR archive is protected by checksums calculated and stored for every archived file. By default, RAR uses CRC32 function to calculate the checksum. RAR 5.0 archive format also allows to select BLAKE2sp hash function instead of CRC32. Specify -htb switch for BLAKE2sp and -htc for CRC32 hash function. Since CRC32 is the default algorithm, you may need -htc only to override -htb in RAR configuration. CRC32 output is 32 bit length. While CRC32 properties are suitable to detect most of unintentional data errors, it is not reliable enough to verify file data identity. In other words, if two files have the same CRC32, it does not guarantee that file contents is the same. BLAKE2sp output is 256 bit. Being a cryptographically strong hash function, it practically guarantees that if two files have the same value of BLAKE2sp, their contents is the same. BLAKE2sp error detection property is also more reliable than in shorter CRC32. Since BLAKE2sp output is longer, resulting archive is slightly larger for -htb switch. If archive headers are unencrypted (no switch -hp), checksums for encrypted RAR 5.0 files are modified using a special password dependent algorithm, to make impossible guessing file contents based on checksums. Do not expect such encrypted file checksums to match usual CRC32 and BLAKE2sp values. This switch is supported only by RAR 5.0 format. You can see checksums of archived files using 'vt' or 'lt' commands. Example: rar a -htb lists.rar *.lst will add *.lst to lists.rar using BLAKE2sp for file checksums. -id[c,d,n,p,q] Display or disable messages. Switch -idc disables the copyright string. Switch -idd disables "Done" string at the end of operation. Switch -idn disables archived names output when creating, testing or extracting an archive. It disables directory creation messages when unpacking a file to non-existing directory. It can affect some other archive processing commands as well. It does not hide other messages and total percentage indicator. Minor visual artifacts, such as percentage indicator overwriting few last characters of error messages, are possible with -idn. Switch -idp disables the percentage indicator. Switch -idq turns on the quiet mode, so only error messages and questions are displayed. It is allowed to use several modifiers at once, so switch -idcdp is correct. -ieml[.][addr] Send archive by email. Windows version only. Attach an archive created or updated by the add command to email message. You need to have a MAPI compliant email client to use this switch (most modern email programs support MAPI interface). You may enter a destination email address directly in the switch or leave it blank. In the latter case you will be asked for it by your email program. It is possible to specify several addresses separated by commas or semicolons. If you append a dot character to -ieml, an archive will be deleted after it was successfully attached to an email. If the switch is used when creating a multivolume archive, every volume is attached to a separate email message. -ierr Send all messages to stderr. -ilog[name] Log errors to file. Write error messages to rar.log file. If optional 'name' parameter is not specified, the log file is created using the following defaults: Unix systems: .rarlog file in the user's home directory; Windows: rar.log file in %APPDATA%\WinRAR directory. If 'name' parameter includes a file name without path, RAR will create the log file in the default directory mentioned above using the specified name. Include both path and name to 'name' parameter if you wish to change the location of log file. By default, log file uses UTF-16 little endian encoding, but it can be changed with -sc<charset>g switch, such as -scag for native single byte encoding. Example: rar a -ilogc:\log\backup.log backup d:\docs will create c:\log\backup.log log file in case of errors. -inul Disable all messages. -ioff[n] Turn PC off after completing an operation.