Extract several archives with multiple volumes at once

The following guide describes a fast method of extracting several archives with multiple volumes each at once on Windows PCs.

I recently downloaded 24 archive files that were split into multiple rar files. Each of the 24 files began with x.rar and ended at x.r24 with x being a number between 1 and 24. I did not want to right-click all 24 files one by one and select Extract Here from the Explorer context menu because this meant a lot of work.

I had to stay near the computer all the time as well to initiate the next process if I would extract the archives this way.

I knew that it was possible to mark more than one file and extract the selection at once using the right-click menu function, but I did not know how to handle archives with multiple volumes. The obvious way to handle those files would be to mark them all and extract them, but this did not work because only the first volume of an archive has to be selected to unpack it.

My first test brought the correct result though. I marked all the 24 rar files (change that to zip or whatever format you are dealing with) and right-clicked one of them. I then selected Extract Here like I would when extracting single archives, and all the 24 rar files where extracted at once.

Note that with rar files, I mean only the files with the .rar extension and no other part of the archive beginning with .r00 and so on. The easiest way to do so is to sort the files in the folder by type.

Just click on the type header to have them sorted this way. This will sort all .rar files together so that you can select them more easily in Windows Explorer.

So, all you need to do is make sure you only highlight the main archive file, which usually uses the file extension of the format, and not the others.

This is in my opinion a great time saver and will hopefully help at least some users who were facing the same problem.

Using ExtractNow

Update: You can alternatively use a software program like Extract Now to quickly extract multiple archives to your computer. It is a versatile software that ships with a queue that you can drag files or folders to, a pause and stop button that give you control at any time over the operation, integration into Windows Explorer for great comfort, and a variety of other features that you may find useful when dealing with multiple archives on your computer.

Instead of having to select all the rar files individually, you can simply run the program on the folder the files reside in, and it will sort everything out by itself which speeds up the process significantly.

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