When you search Bing or Google for software to extract Bin files, you end up with links to commercial programs like Magic ISO. It is not easy to find free software to extract Bin files on a computer system in the search engines. Before I show you how to do just that for free, I would like to start with a short description of the Bin format and alternatives to extracting the file contents to the system.
Bin is an image format, that is commonly used on the Internet. It is usually accompanied by a cue file of the same name that has instructions on how to burn or mount the image properly. Most CD and DVD burning programs support Bin and Cue files, and one valid option is to burn the file to CD or DVD to access the files. It is on the other hand not a straightforward solution. A free burning software is ImgBurn that supports those files.
Another possibility is to mount the bin file on the system, which basically emulates the CD burning. Free tools that can mount bin files are OSFMount, Virtual Clone Drive or WinCD Emu
If you just want to extract the bin file on your PC, you can use a free archiving software that supports the extraction. One of the programs that is capable of that is IZArc, which I first reviewed in 2007 here on Ghacks Technology News.
IZArc supports a wide variety of archiving and CD/DVD imaging formats, including the Bin format. The program adds context menu entries to the Windows Explorer right-click menu by default, which you can use to extract the Bin files after installation.
Just right-click the bin file in question and select IZArc > Extract Here to extract the file and folder structure to the current directory. You can alternatively open the Bin file in IZArc which is probably the better option if you just need a file from the image and not all files.
The original bin file will be left untouched if you opt to extract it to the computer. The same is true if you open it in the program, but be aware that the changes that you make there might alter the file permanently (for instance if you decide to delete a file).
Is there another method to extract Bin files that I have forgotten to mention? Let me know in the comments.
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7-zip does it too
I don’t see BIN files too much but
when I do I convert them with WinBin2Iso.
The ISO can be then handled with several programs.
IZArc looks to be a great way to go for extraction.
I have been meaning to install it forever and
this is a reminder maybe I should.
Like john said, 7-zip will open them too. Izarc and 7zip more or less are equal in what they do. I prefer 7zip because it is open source and supports multiple platforms.
I cannot get the 7-Zip context menu entries to work under Windows 7 64-bit. Did not have time to troubleshoot the issue.
You can configure correctly your 7-Zip on w7-x64 opening 7-Zip with admin rights
The program HAOZIP you mentioned a while back does it.