Create rar5 archives from command line

Question

Winrar current version 5.3 allows creating archives from the command line, but apparently only in zip and rar 2.9 formats, not rar5 which gives slightly better performance.

Quoting its help file:

Switch -AF<type> - specify archive format

This switch allows to define a type of new archive in WinRAR 
command line. <Type> parameter can be 'rar' or 'zip'.
For example, 'winrar a -afzip arc' will create arc.zip archive.

I tried winrar -AFrar5 with no luck: it silently defaults to rar 2.9 format.

I also tried to force a dictionary size that seems only supported by version 5 (according to the GUI) winrar -MD1048576 with the same result.

Any explanation to the missing command line option? Any hack to force rar5 format?

Answer 1

Switch -MA[4|5] - specify a version of archiving format

By default WinRAR creates archives in RAR 4.x format. Use -ma5 or just -ma to create RAR 5.0 archives. Use -ma4 in case you need to override -ma5 saved in configuration and force WinRAR to use RAR 4.x format.

This switch is used only when creating a new archive. It is ignored when updating an existing archive.

Example Create RAR 5.0 solid archive and compress SrcDir using 64 MB dictionary:

WinRAR a -ma -md64m data SrcDir

Read WinRAR.chm (located in you WinRAR folder) for more details.

Contents > Command line mode > Switches

have everything you may need.