Monday, August 30, 2010

MUTTERINGS #20: HOW TO EXTRACT RAR MUSIC FILES


I have had a few web friends asking me how to enjoy the music on my blog, in fact most music blogs these days. Instead of uploading individual songs in mp3 format, to save time and bandwith, most people now compress music albums into one individual RAR file. However, to hear the music, the file must first be "extracted".

Therefore, a RAR file is not a multimedia file, but rather a zip file that contain one or more compressed files. In the case of my RAR file, it is mp3 songs. To listen to RAR files, you need to "extract" the mp3 files from the .rar archive and then play them as you would on windows media player or iTunes.

First you need to buy or download the RAR extractor file. Do a Google search on ‘free RAR extrators’ or use this link I found HERE. Download the RAR extractor and save it in your DOWNLOADS folder. Go to your DOWNLOADS folder (make sure you are logged in as the administrator) and right click the file downloaded and RUN the file. Install it in your PROGRAMS folder.


Then, download the music from my site (or any site/s that uses RAR) and save it in your MUSIC folder. Open your MUSIC folder and find the RAR file - the icon will look like a pile of BOOKS (see picture above). Right click on the RAR file and find a command that says or starts with ‘extract to ......’ . A window will quickly open and ‘unzip’ the file. You don’t need to do anything at this stage. The unzip file will look the same as the other music files and will have the same name (but with a .mp3 extension instead) as the RAR file. Just click on the file and it will open with your default music software. I hope this make sense. Or you can try this site for more info: Ezine Articles.

Happy listening.
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2 comments:

StephenDS said...

If I may... a free software 7zip is awesome when it comes to zipping and unzipping almost any sort of compressed file, including RAR files. I would recommend 7zip over anything else. Just Google 7zip to go to the right website.

Veen said...

Thanks Stephen. I'll give that a go. Cheers for the info.