How to Stop Unrar Continuing to Next Volume

This guide explains how to prevent the unrar command-line utility from automatically continuing to extract subsequent parts of a multi-volume RAR archive. By applying specific command-line switches, you can force the program to pause, prompt for user confirmation, or halt processing before it attempts to read the next archive volume in a sequence.

Use the -vp Switch to Pause Before Next Volume

By default, unrar scans the current directory and automatically loads the next file in a multi-volume set (such as .part1.rar, .part2.rar). To stop this behavior and take control of the execution flow, append the -vp switch to your extraction command.

unrar x -vp archive.part01.rar

When unrar finishes extracting the contents of the current file, it pauses execution and prompts you before attempting to access the next volume. At this prompt, you can press Ctrl + C or select the quit option to terminate the command and prevent further extraction.

Use the -v- Switch to Disable Volume Auto-Detection

Another method to prevent automatic chaining is the -v- switch. This flag disables automatic volume detection entirely:

unrar e -v- archive.part01.rar

With -v- active, unrar will not automatically locate the next file in the folder. Instead, it stops and prompts you for the location of the next disk or volume. If you do not provide the next volume, the process terminates.

Important Notes on Split Files

Stopping extraction before processing all volumes will leave any file that spans across volume boundaries incomplete or corrupted. However, any separate files that were contained entirely within the extracted volume will remain intact in the destination directory.