To activate this dialog select "Settings…" command in Options menu and click on "Paths" tab. The dialog contents are described below.
WinRAR uses this folder to create temporary files. If this field is blank, temporary files and folders will be created either in the current folder or in Windows temporary folder, depending on command type. If it is not blank, a folder specified here must already exist.
Initial state of this parameter is the standard Windows temporary folder. If you changed it and wish to revert it back to Windows temporary folder later, you can enter %temp% instead of folder name. WinRAR will expand it to Windows temporary folder name before creating temporary files.
For hard disks generally it is faster to create a temporary archive in the same folder as an updating archive, but for slow external disks it may be more efficient to create an archive on a hard disk and then copy it to external disk. To implement such behavior you should specify Folder for temporary files and turn on Use only for removable disks option.
Use only for removable disks option affects only those commands, which involve archive modification. Other commands would not benefit from it, so they ignore the current disk type.
You may enter here a folder, which will be opened each time when WinRAR is started. This option has meaning only if Restore last working folder on start-up option is switched off, otherwise last opened folder will be set.
If this option is enabled, WinRAR will set last viewed folder, when executed without parameters.
If this field is not empty and an archive name does not contain a full path, an archive will be created in the specified folder. For example, if you entered the path to your Desktop, archives created by WinRAR will appear on the Desktop.
If this field is empty and an archive name does not contain a full path, archives will be created in the same folder as the files archived.
In the command line mode -cfg- switch disables most of WinRAR settings including the default folder for archives.
You may enter here a name of the folder, which will be used as a base to construct the destination folder in Extract without confirmation and Extract files to a specified folder commands. WinRAR builds the destination path in these extraction commands merging the default folder and an archive name. It may be convenient to enter Desktop path here, so you will immediately see unpacked data on your Desktop.
Unlike the default folder for archives, the default folder for extracted files is not used in the command line mode. Only "Extract files..." command is affected in context menus.
It controls if archive name is appended to the default folder or to folder proposed in extraction dialog, when constructing the destination path for extracted files.
This option eliminates duplicate folders in extraction destination path. It is applicable only to archives with a single folder and no files in the root folder. If name of this single archived folder matches the archive name and last component of proposed destination path, such last component is removed from the path.
For example, if Pictures.rar contains the archived "Pictures" root folder and is unpacked with "Extract to Pictures\" command, one of "Pictures" in the destination path is removed to avoid the redundant "Pictures\Pictures" sequence.
This option is applicable both to WinRAR user interface and context menus, but it is ignored in the command line mode. It works with both a single archive and multiple archives unpacked to separate folders. This option can introduce an additional delay associated with analyzing the archive contents before extracting.