WinRAR Portable

WinRAR Portable is simply the portable version of the well-known archiver WinRAR by RARLAB. It archives and extracts files just as well as the installed WinRAR does.

WinRAR Portable is a good solution if you need to transfer a large file to a computer without internet access and all you have is a small USB stick. You can compress the large file into a smaller RAR archive on the first computer, copy that archive to your USB stick along with WinRAR Portable and then run WinRAR Portable right off your USB stick on the target computer to extract the file there. If the file is bigger than the stick, WinRAR can split the archive into several volumes of a set size. Nothing has to be installed on the target computer, and the program works exactly as you would expect from any other copy of WinRAR.

If you're creating an archive with WinRAR Portable you can protect it with a password; archives in the RAR5 format are encrypted with AES-256, so nobody without the password will be able to open your files. You can set the archiver to test the archive after it's done creating. This is a good way to make sure that the archive was created successfully with no errors before you take it to the target computer. You can also set WinRAR Portable to delete the original files from your computer if you'll no longer need them after archiving. This could be useful if you're trying to save space on your computer or if you're changing over to a new computer entirely.

WinRAR itself runs on Windows only; RARLAB also offers command-line RAR for Linux and macOS and a separate RAR app for Android. WinRAR creates RAR and ZIP archives and unpacks many other formats, including 7Z, CAB, ARJ, LZH, TAR, GZ, BZ2, XZ, ISO and Z. It can keep its settings in a WinRAR.ini file in its own folder instead of the Windows Registry, which is what makes it suitable for removable media. WinRAR is shareware with a fully functional 40-day trial, after which a license should be bought. It is worth trying out if you ever need to move large files to a computer without internet access.

WinRAR Portable lets you carry a full-featured archiver on a USB drive and use it on any Windows PC without installing it.