How To Extract Bin Files With Free Software

Martin Brinkmann
Updated •
Tutorials
Update: IZArc's installer includes several adware offers that try their best to confuse and misguide the user so that these offers are installed on the user system. I highly suggest you use an alternative, like one of the CD and DVD mounting tools listed below.

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

Update 2: Since IZArc's adware offers have become even more obtrusive than before, we have decided to no longer link to it. Use a program like Bandizip instead which can extract Bin files as well but ships without any adware offers. End

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.

extract bin 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.

Comments

  1. Anonymous said on
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  2. JaySkye said on
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    Izarc now says it’s completely adware free… I will check it out later this evening but seems like they were forced to change their ways

    1. JaySkye said on
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      yup, totally adware free, works nice but i cant unpack the bin i was trying to open, maybe its just my file

  3. Snowmeow said on
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    Bandizip does NOT extract BIN archives, just compress files to BIN format.

  4. Tomas said on
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    Possibly because of colorblindness, I failed to notice the warning about IZArc. I was very careful when installing and did not allow the installer to install additional software, but it did anyway. My computer is now full of malware.

    Why would you even give publicity to this crapware? I trust your name guys and this article was the only reason I installed IZArc.

    1. Martin Brinkmann said on
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      Tomas, I’m sorry you experienced that. Since reviews are written at a specific point in time, it is not possible to cover updates or changes that happen to a program in the future.

      I have removed the link and replaced it with an alternative.

  5. Mosel Thornly said on
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    Adware is a virus. There is no difference. IZArc should be prosecuted.

    Also Martin should edit this article so there is no mention of IZArc.

  6. Mosel Thornly said on
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    Adware is a virus. There is no difference. IZArc should be prosecuted.

  7. mike said on
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    VIRUS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
    THIS FUKING FULL OF VIRUS AND ADSWARES INTO YOUR COMPUTER. WHAT A FUKING MESS ON MY PC NOW

    DO NOT INSTALL!

    1. Martin Brinkmann said on
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      This is not a virus. It contains adware, as mentioned on top of the article.

      1. H said on
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        This IZArc Software was loaded with Viruses. What a crappy article not to mention that issue. I had to download multiple softwares and clean my registry to get rid of the malware. Over two hours invested in doing it. I even unchecked all of their “Offers” when installing, and even did a custom installation to avoid installing anything other than IZarc. It took over almost everything on my web browsers and even had scripts running that were popping up even when the browser wasn’t running. DO NOT USE IZARC!!!!!!!!

      2. Martin Brinkmann said on
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        I’m sorry that you experienced this. You are probably unaware that software installers may display different types of offers to different types of users based on location or operating system. There is also a difference between a virus and adware. I’m not saying you did not catch a virus but if you did, I’d ask you to prove this please.

  8. tom said on
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    Do Not install IZArc it is a piece of crap!

    It will try to install so much crapware and my antivirus even went off when it tried to install this
    “quickshare1.exe.0 (Suspicious.Cloud.2) detected by Auto-Protect,Quarantined,Resolved”

    I cannot believe anyone would recommend installing this bloatware.

    1. Martin Brinkmann said on
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      Update: I have added a warning to the top of the review.

    2. Martin Brinkmann said on
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      Please note that this has been reviewed in 2011, and that things may change along the way. I will give it another try and post a warning message in the review afterwards.

  9. abc said on
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    p.s. The IZArc installer is absolutely the most toxic I have ever seen for freeware, bar none. Installing it without accidentally installing crapware requires the concentration I normally reserve for reading legal contracts.

  10. abc said on
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    As mentioned above, 7-zip does not support extracting BIN files. It failed when I tried, and BIN is not listed on the 7-zip website as a supported format. Specifically,

    7-zip:
    Supported formats:
    Packing / unpacking: 7z, XZ, BZIP2, GZIP, TAR, ZIP and WIM
    Unpacking only: ARJ, CAB, CHM, CPIO, CramFS, DEB, DMG, FAT, HFS, ISO, LZH, LZMA, MBR, MSI, NSIS, NTFS, RAR, RPM, SquashFS, UDF, VHD, WIM, XAR and Z.

    izarc:
    7-ZIP, A, ACE, ARC, ARJ, B64, BH, BIN, BZ2, BZA, C2D, CAB, CDI, CPIO, DEB, ENC, GCA, GZ, GZA, HA, IMG, ISO, JAR, LHA, LIB, LZH, MDF, MBF, MIM, NRG, PAK, PDI, PK3, RAR, RPM, TAR, TAZ, TBZ, TGZ, TZ, UUE, WAR, XPI, XXE, YZ1, Z, ZIP, ZOO

  11. moltres_rider said on
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    all of you who are saying 7zip can open bin files! don’t lie!!!! I have the latest version of 7zip but it is NOT accepting bin files!!!!

  12. Ben said on
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    The program HAOZIP you mentioned a while back does it.

  13. Credomane said on
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    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.

    1. Martin Brinkmann said on
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      I cannot get the 7-Zip context menu entries to work under Windows 7 64-bit. Did not have time to troubleshoot the issue.

      1. JVF said on
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        You can configure correctly your 7-Zip on w7-x64 opening 7-Zip with admin rights

  14. Robert Palmar said on
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    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.

  15. john said on
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    7-zip does it too

    1. Anonymous said on
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      No it doesn’t

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