Free online RAR to AVI converter

Older media players, editing systems, and hardware devices may require an AVI file when the video arrives inside a RAR archive. Extract the video first; only encode it if the archive contains another format or the extracted AVI is incompatible with the target device.

RAR and AVI serve different purposes: RAR is an archive container for storing files, while AVI is a multimedia container for audio and video streams.

What the RAR format is

RAR is a compressed archive format developed by Eugene Roshal and commonly created with WinRAR. It can store one or more files, preserve directory structures, split data into volumes, encrypt contents with a password, and include recovery records.

RAR archives are used for video collections, backups, software distributions, and large file transfers. A split archive may use names such as video.part1.rar, video.part2.rar, and video.part3.rar. Older multipart archives may use video.rar, video.r00, and video.r01.

RAR does not define the format or codec of an enclosed video. An archive may contain an AVI, MP4, MKV, MOV, several videos, subtitles, or non-video files. Compressing a video with RAR does not change its playback format, and usually produces only a modest size reduction because most video codecs are already compressed.

What the AVI format is

AVI, or Audio Video Interleave, is a multimedia container developed by Microsoft. It can hold video and audio encoded with codecs including MPEG-4 Part 2, DivX, Xvid, Motion JPEG, DV, PCM, MP3, and other formats.

AVI remains useful with older Windows software, capture systems, industrial applications, and hardware that specifically requires an .avi file. Its relatively simple structure and support for lightly compressed or uncompressed video can suit some capture and editing workflows.

AVI has less support than newer containers for features such as variable-frame-rate video, chapters, embedded subtitles, and advanced metadata. The .avi extension does not guarantee playback: the target must also support the contained video codec, audio codec, resolution, frame rate, pixel format, bitrate, and file size.

Extract the video from the archive

1. Download every volume of a split archive and place all volumes in the same folder. Open the first file, normally video.part1.rar or video.rar; do not extract the volumes separately.
2. On Windows, use WinRAR or 7-Zip. On macOS or Linux, use a compatible RAR extractor such as The Unarchiver, 7-Zip, or UnRAR.
3. In 7-Zip, right-click the first volume and choose 7-Zip → Extract here or 7-Zip → Extract to “video\”. In WinRAR, choose Extract to video\. Enter the password if requested.
4. Inspect the extracted files. If one is already an AVI and its codecs meet the destination requirements, no encoding is necessary.

Command-line extraction is also possible:

7z x video.part1.rar -oextracted

or:

unrar x video.part1.rar extracted/

Extraction preserves the original video and audio streams, so it does not reduce their quality. Renaming input.mp4 or input.mkv to input.avi does not convert the file.

Convert another video to AVI

If extraction produces an MP4, MKV, MOV, or another non-AVI video, use FFmpeg to encode it. This command creates an AVI containing MPEG-4 Part 2 video and MP3 audio:

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c:v mpeg4 -q:v 3 -c:a libmp3lame -q:a 2 output.avi

Replace input.mp4 with the extracted filename. Lower -q:v values generally produce higher quality and larger files with FFmpeg's MPEG-4 Part 2 encoder. Some FFmpeg builds do not include the optional libmp3lame encoder; use -c:a pcm_s16le for broadly compatible PCM audio, accepting a much larger output file.

For a device with documented requirements, specify its required frame rate, dimensions, and audio settings:

ffmpeg -i input.mkv -c:v mpeg4 -q:v 4 -r 25 -vf scale=720:576 -c:a libmp3lame -ar 48000 -b:a 192k output.avi

Do not copy these values without checking the device manual. Use ffprobe input.mkv to inspect the source before choosing output settings. If the source streams are already compatible with the target AVI, -c copy can avoid re-encoding, but stream compatibility, variable frame rate, and AVI limitations must still be checked.

Use a graphical or built-in converter

VLC can perform a basic conversion through Media → Convert/Save → Add → Convert/Save. Select an AVI profile, choose a destination ending in .avi, and verify the profile's video and audio codecs. VLC provides fewer codec and hardware-compatibility controls than FFmpeg.

101convert.com provides a built-in RAR-to-AVI converter that can process the archive without locally installing extraction or encoding software. Upload the RAR file, start the conversion, and download the AVI if the service accepts the archive and its contents. Multipart archives, password-protected archives, private files, and large uploads may require local extraction instead.

Quality and compatibility limits

Extracting an AVI from RAR is lossless because it only decompresses the archive. Encoding an MP4, MKV, or other compressed source as AVI normally decodes and re-encodes the video, which can reduce quality. Keep the original archive and extracted source until the output has been tested.

AVI is often less space-efficient than MP4 or MKV. Although AVI can contain H.264, many older players do not support H.264-in-AVI reliably; MPEG-4 Part 2, Motion JPEG, or a device-specific codec may be required. A computer may play the file while the intended hardware rejects it because of an unsupported codec, resolution, frame rate, audio format, bitrate, variable frame rate, or file-size limit.

Extraction errors usually indicate a missing or damaged volume, an incorrect password, or archive corruption rather than a video-encoding problem. An archive containing multiple videos requires selecting the correct file and checking its duration, streams, and playback after extraction.