How can you remove a password from a .rar file?

You could Google “crack rar password”

As it seems you only need this for a single file, try and find a shareware RAR password recovery program that lets you ‘evaluate’ it for a few files first. That should save you any cost and solve your problem.

www.rarpasswordcracker.com might be one you could try?

@smokester I did have a look at that cracker, but it is shareware and only allows passwords up to 3 characters before registering. I’m not sure what it means by a dictionary, and when I tried 8 character by brute force it estimated the time to be around 670 hours – and its not really worth it that amount of time.

@FireMadeFlesh Be very careful with RAR password crackers. I’ve tried a couple, and what I’ve found is that the free version generally doesn’t work very well, and I’ve never had success. RAR format is unfortunately quite robust, so unless the password you assigned was pretty simple, the brute force cracking method used by most of these tools could take a VERY long time, and in the end, not be successful anyway. Since it’s your file, you might solve your problem faster by trying to remember the password, lol.

One other note, twice a password cracker program has tried to install malware on my computer, as evidenced by the screaming of my antivirus program. I’m pretty much done with them; I make sure to record any password I assign for future reference.

@nope Thanks, it is looking like an impossible task. I’ll just have to remember what was in the files and hope I can rewrite them – I can remember that better than the password.

I have had to recover a few passwords on various different files, and although ‘brute force’ recovery tecniques say it will take forever, 15 or 20 minutes later it’s done as I never use funky syllables. This kind of software shouldn’t be malicious as they are bonafide programs and I found this one recommened by Softpedia (looks like the demo allows 10 free uses?).

http://www.password-recovery-magic.com/rar_password_recovery/index.htm

Thanks @smokester, I’ll try it.