An A02 file most often represents part three of a divided archive rather than a standalone format, because large compressed files get broken into chunks like A00, A01, A02, etc. In the event you adored this information along with you want to be given details with regards to best app to open A02 files i implore you to check out the site. , and A02 won’t open by itself since the header lives in the first part, causing errors such as "corrupt"; the correct workflow is to place all parts together and open the starter—either the .ARJ file if present or the .A00 if not—so tools like 7-Zip or WinRAR can automatically read A01, A02, and the rest, with extraction failures usually pointing to missing or damaged volumes, and sorting by name to confirm all parts exist helps ensure successful extraction.
To figure out which set an A02 file belongs to, view the folder sorted by name so related pieces align, check for identical prefixes—`backup.a00`, `backup.a01`, `backup.a02`—and see whether a main file like `backup.arj` is present, which should be opened first; if no `.arj` exists and the sequence starts at `.a00`, that’s your starting volume, and you can confirm by opening it with 7-Zip or WinRAR, while any missing middle numbers or mismatched names mean extraction will fail until the missing or damaged parts are recovered.
Saying A02 is "part 3" means it serves as the third continuation block in a split archive created by dividing one compressed file into `.A00`, `.A01`, `.A02`, so A02 isn’t its own format but a direct continuation of the same compressed stream, and because the header and file list appear in the first segment or `.ARJ`, A02 alone will fail to open; if identical prefixes like `something.a00`, `something.a01`, and `something.a02` appear, keep them unified and open the first volume so the tool retrieves data from later parts automatically.
An A02 file usually won’t open on its own because it’s simply a mid-stream chunk of a multi-part archive, and formats store key information—headers, file lists, compression details, and checksums—in the first volume (like `.A00` or a main `.ARJ`), so opening A02 directly fails since it starts mid-stream without a recognizable signature, causing errors such as "unknown format", even when the set is intact; the correct method is to put all parts together and open the starter so the extractor can read A01, A02, and onward automatically.
When a tool like 7-Zip or WinRAR "uses" A02, it handles it strictly as the next data segment, because extraction starts from the initial `.ARJ` or `.A00` which contains the archive header, and volume data is consumed sequentially—first `.A00`, then `.A01`, then `.A02`—without any manual merging; if A02 is absent or corrupted, you get errors such as "CRC mismatch".