While it is possible to use software like 7-zip, Winrar or Winzip to extract all archives of a folder, it is still a manual operation. You have to open the folder in Windows Explorer or in the software to extract all archives that it contains. Some program support extracting archives in subfolders, while others do not.

When you first start AutoWinRarZip you are asked to add at least one folder to the program. Each folder that you add will be monitored actively whenever the program is running in the background.

You can then specify a destination directory where the archives will be unpacked to, if you want to delete the archives after a successful extraction and whether you want to create a folder for each archive in the destination directory.

AutoWinRarZip supports several archive formats, including rar and zip, but also lesser used formats such as tar or gzip. The software will auto detect zip and rar extensions in the specified directories and automatically extract the archive contents to the destination folder.

A progress bar and file listing is displayed whenever archives are extracted by the software.

The automatic nature of the program is the one feature that could make this program interesting for some Windows users. Features like automatic extraction of all archives in a selected root folder are also supported by other programs for Windows, like the excellent Extract Now.

AutoWinRarZip is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 operating system. The program needs the Microsoft .NET Framework, the developer unfortunately forgot to mention which version of it.

Interested users can download the application from the official program website. (via)

The feature that sticks out is that it processes subdirectories automatically as well. If you like your downloads ordered, like Anonymoose who mentioned the software, you could have many rar – or other formats such as zip – files in different folders on your hard drive. Just drag the main folder into Extract Now and it will do all the rest automatically for you.

Besides the obvious drag and drop support it also integrates nicely in your Windows Explorer giving you options to extract files by right-clicking them.

I said earlier that the most used formats like zip, rar and gz are supported as well as image formats such as iso and img. You still need a software that is able to zip software which means this tool is basically for those who work a lot with files that they have to extract.