RAR files are great for squeezing big files down into small archives, which comes in handy when you need to send large files to someone. It makes the whole transfer process a lot easier. But if a RAR file gets corrupted, you might find your files suddenly inaccessible or unreadable.
Say you’ve just downloaded the latest video file in WinRAR format so you wouldn’t have to download it at full size. Then, when you try to extract it, you get an error message that says “file cannot be opened“. You’ve probably guessed already, that’s almost always down to corruption in the downloaded file.
Repair a Corrupt RAR File using WinRAR
You can repair a damaged or corrupt RAR file pretty easily using WinRAR’s built-in file repair function, it’s the simplest way to fix RAR files without a lot of hassle. Here’s all you need to do: right-click on the corrupted RAR file –> choose Open with WinRAR. Then click Tools on the toolbar –> choose Repair archive.
Or you can follow these steps instead:
Step 1. Open WinRAR on your computer. You’ll find the location of the corrupted RAR file in WinRAR’s address bar.
Step 2. Select the corrupted RAR file you want to repair → click the Repair button.
Step 3. A pop-up window will appear, click Browse to pick a destination path, then click OK to start repairing the corrupted RAR file.
Once the repair process finishes, you can close the file repair window and head over to the destination folder to check on your repaired RAR archive.
You’ll find the repaired file named rebuilt.filename.rar.
WinRAR can repair a corrupt RAR file, sure, but keep in mind the tool isn’t free, it’s trialware. So if your RAR file is still corrupted after trying this, you’re better off turning to a safe, secure third-party RAR file repair tool.
My WinRAR file is corrupted. How can I fix it?
Start with WinRAR’s own Repair archive tool, covered above. That fixes a good share of corrupt RAR files, especially ones damaged by an incomplete download or a small CRC mismatch. It will not help if the header is badly mangled or if the archive was truncated mid-transfer, though. In that case WinRAR often just throws an error back at you, or rebuilds a file that opens but contains nothing useful.
A few things make the difference between a fixable file and a lost one. How the file got corrupted matters. A RAR split across multiple volumes (.part1.rar, .part2.rar and so on) is harder to rebuild than a single .rar file, because the repair tool needs every volume present and intact to reconstruct the archive correctly. If you are missing even one part, WinRAR’s repair function usually cannot finish the job. If you have tried the built-in repair and your files still will not extract, a dedicated RAR file repair tool that works on a copy of the archive is the safer next step, rather than running repair attempts over and over on the same damaged file.
Repair Corrupt or Damaged RAR File using SFWare
SFWare RAR File Repair tool is hands-down the tool we’d recommend for fixing corrupt RAR files without any hassle. It leaves your original file untouched and works only on a copy of it. It can even fix a damaged .rar archive that was compressed using different compression techniques.
Go ahead and download the software now to get your corrupt RAR files fixed in no time.
To repair a corrupt or damaged RAR file, download and install SFWare Repair RAR file on your computer, then launch the application.
1: Select the RAR file you want to repair and click Repair.
2: The tool kicks off the quick repair process.
3: Once the repair’s done, save your files wherever you’d like on your computer.
Can’t extract your file because it’s password protected? Don’t sweat it! You can try extracting the RAR archive while ignoring the errors to get access back to your corrupt RAR file.
What programs can I use to repair corrupted files?
For RAR archives specifically, your two realistic options are WinRAR’s built-in repair feature and a dedicated third-party RAR repair tool, both covered in detail above. Beyond RAR, the right program depends on what kind of file you are dealing with.
If you are trying to repair corrupt ZIP file archives, the logic is similar to RAR: most zip utilities include some form of archive repair or recovery mode, though success rates vary a lot depending on how the file was damaged. Office documents are a different story. A corrupt PowerPoint file often opens with a built-in repair prompt from PowerPoint itself. A corrupt Photoshop file usually needs Photoshop’s own file recovery process, since PSD corruption tends to affect the layer data rather than the overall file wrapper.
Media files need their own tools entirely. If you are trying to repair corrupt MOV file footage or other corrupt video files, generic archive repair software will not help at all, since the internal frame and codec structure has nothing in common with how RAR or ZIP store data. Stick to a tool built specifically for the file type you are fixing.
How to uncorrupt a corrupted file?
There is no universal undo button. What works depends entirely on the file type. For archives like RAR and ZIP, repair works by scanning the file for valid data blocks and rebuilding the index that tells the archive where each compressed file starts and ends. That is different from how you would repair corrupt PST file data, or fix a corrupt video or image file, where the internal structure is completely different.
For RAR specifically, uncorrupting a file means one of two things: patching the archive’s internal structure so standard tools can read it again, or extracting whatever readable data remains and discarding the rest. The first approach gets you your original files back intact. The second is a fallback when the damage is too severe for a clean repair, and it is why WinRAR’s Keep Broken Files option exists, covered elsewhere on this page.
Back up the damaged file before attempting any repair. Repair tools work on copies when they are well designed, but not every method does, and you only get one shot at the original bytes if something goes wrong partway through.
How to Extract Corrupt RAR Files in WinRAR?
WinRAR gives you an easy way to extract the RAR archive even when the file is broken or corrupted.
- Right-click the corrupted/damaged RAR file –> click Open with WinRAR
- In the WinRAR window –> click the Extract button on the toolbar
- In the Extraction path and options window, pick a destination path to save the extracted files.
- Check the Keep Broken Files option under Miscellaneous in the Extraction path and options window. Click OK to kick off file extraction from the RAR archive.
This will preserve the corrupted or damaged RAR files for you. If any error messages pop up along the way, just ignore them and keep going with the extraction.
