HOWTO: UnRARing directories

[Josip Tosic]

Hi,
I don't know if this is a common knowledge but here goes nothing...

I unpack archives (read: releases) contained in directories on the daily basis. So my procedure, until now, was to copy the name of the containing directory, create a directory with the same name on another drive, enter source and destination directories, then look up archives in source directory (and it's subdirectories) and queue 'em manually to unpack into destination directory. As you can see, extremely tedious when you have to do it on 4+ directories every day.

I thought, "there has to be an easier way" - and, lo and behold, there is!

First, download UnRAR standalone application - there's even x64 build available.

http://www.rarlab.com/rar_add.htm

Configure user menu to include "Un&RAR (recursive)" item (you can even set an icon for it from WinRAR executable).

Execute through shell: Yes
Open shell window: Yes
Close shell window: Yes
Show item in User Menu Bar: Yes

Command: C:\UTILS\WINRAR\UNRAR.EXE
Arguments: x -y "$(FullName)" $(FullPathInactive)$(Name)\
Initial directory: $(FullPath)

It's important that you use "Execute through shell" since it'll queue multiple UnRAR tasks so you can select more than one directory that'll be searched for archives.

So... now you can select one or more directories, select destination in the other panel, use [F9] to call User Menu on the selected directories and select "UnRAR (recursive)" and wait. Each selected source directory will be recreated in the destination panel (if it contained archives) and will contain unpacked files.