Why is VLC opening RAR files?

[ant]

Hi.

I have a RAR file on my HDD and Mac OS X v10.5.8 launches VLC v1.1.3. What's up with that? How can I tell it not to open RAR files with VLC? There are no videos in it, just other non-video files in it. I was unable to find file associations in VLC.

Thank you in advance.

[fkuehne]

Have a look at the Finder's Information panel for the specific rar file. There are options to set the default application for this file type.

[ant]

Have a look at the Finder's Information panel for the specific rar file. There are options to set the default application for this file type.

Thanks. I will check on it later (not at the MacBook Pro right now).

Do I assume it is normal for VLC to associate with *.rar files?

[fkuehne]

Yes, because lot's of users asked for that. Apparently, shared media is often packaged in rar archives. VLC includes a rar-decoder so you don't need to decompress the archives to play their contents.

[ant]

Yes, because lot's of users asked for that. Apparently, shared media is often packaged in rar archives. VLC includes a rar-decoder so you don't need to decompress the archives to play their contents.

Oh, wow. That is cool (just tried it with a 89 part RAR set video. However, that is annoying if the RAR files don't have videos in it.

[ant]

If VLC find no video files inside RAR files, then VLC should say that to the user. I had a non-computer expert client who was trying to open his downloaded RAR files, with documents, in his VLC v3.0.1 in Mac OS Sierra v10.12.6.

FYI. https://trac.videolan.org/vlc/ticket/20217 for my bug report.