diff --git a/DOCS/man/options.rst b/DOCS/man/options.rst
index 9eaf2b2791..dcd68194c2 100644
--- a/DOCS/man/options.rst
+++ b/DOCS/man/options.rst
@@ -3458,6 +3458,18 @@ Demuxer
     after the initial caching. This option is useless if the file cannot be
     cached completely.
 
+``--rar-list-all-volumes=<yes|no>``
+    When opening multi-volume rar files, open all volumes to create a full list
+    of contained files (default: no). If disabled, only the archive entries
+    whose headers are located within the first volume are listed (and thus
+    played when opening a .rar file with mpv). Doing so speeds up opening, and
+    the typical idiotic use-case of playing uncompressed multi-volume rar files
+    that contain a single media file is made faster.
+
+    Opening is still slow, because for unknown, idiotic, and unnecessary reasons
+    libarchive opens all volumes anyway when playing the main file, even though
+    mpv iterated no archive entries yet.
+
 Input
 -----
 
diff --git a/demux/demux_libarchive.c b/demux/demux_libarchive.c
index 31e0c2b418..4be5193b22 100644
--- a/demux/demux_libarchive.c
+++ b/demux/demux_libarchive.c
@@ -20,12 +20,17 @@
 
 #include "common/common.h"
 #include "common/playlist.h"
+#include "options/m_config.h"
 #include "stream/stream.h"
 #include "misc/natural_sort.h"
 #include "demux.h"
 
 #include "stream/stream_libarchive.h"
 
+struct demux_libarchive_opts {
+    int rar_list_all_volumes;
+};
+
 static int cmp_filename(const void *a, const void *b)
 {
     return mp_natural_sort_cmp(*(char **)a, *(char **)b);
@@ -57,6 +62,12 @@ static int open_file(struct demuxer *demuxer, enum demux_check check)
     if (!ok)
         return -1;
 
+    struct demux_libarchive_opts *opts =
+        mp_get_config_group(demuxer, demuxer->global, demuxer->desc->options);
+
+    if (!opts->rar_list_all_volumes)
+        flags |= MP_ARCHIVE_FLAG_NO_RAR_VOLUMES;
+
     mpa = mp_archive_new(demuxer->log, demuxer->stream, flags, 0);
     if (!mpa)
         return -1;
@@ -93,8 +104,17 @@ static int open_file(struct demuxer *demuxer, enum demux_check check)
     return 0;
 }
 
+#define OPT_BASE_STRUCT struct demux_libarchive_opts
+
 const struct demuxer_desc demuxer_desc_libarchive = {
     .name = "libarchive",
     .desc = "libarchive wrapper",
     .open = open_file,
+    .options = &(const struct m_sub_options){
+        .opts = (const struct m_option[]) {
+            OPT_FLAG("rar-list-all-volumes", rar_list_all_volumes, 0),
+            {0}
+        },
+        .size = sizeof(OPT_BASE_STRUCT),
+    },
 };
diff --git a/stream/stream_libarchive.c b/stream/stream_libarchive.c
index 7c48f3a135..a43f2e633f 100644
--- a/stream/stream_libarchive.c
+++ b/stream/stream_libarchive.c
@@ -264,9 +264,11 @@ struct mp_archive *mp_archive_new(struct mp_log *log, struct stream *src,
     if (!add_volume(mpa, src, src->url, 0))
         goto err;
 
-    // try to open other volumes
-    if (!find_volumes(mpa))
-        goto err;
+    if (!(flags & MP_ARCHIVE_FLAG_NO_RAR_VOLUMES)) {
+        // try to open other volumes
+        if (!find_volumes(mpa))
+            goto err;
+    }
 
     locale_t oldlocale = uselocale(mpa->locale);
 
diff --git a/stream/stream_libarchive.h b/stream/stream_libarchive.h
index bb5dee432b..f9e05fcbee 100644
--- a/stream/stream_libarchive.h
+++ b/stream/stream_libarchive.h
@@ -24,7 +24,8 @@ struct mp_archive {
 
 void mp_archive_free(struct mp_archive *mpa);
 
-#define MP_ARCHIVE_FLAG_UNSAFE 1
+#define MP_ARCHIVE_FLAG_UNSAFE          (1 << 0)
+#define MP_ARCHIVE_FLAG_NO_RAR_VOLUMES  (1 << 1)
 struct mp_archive *mp_archive_new(struct mp_log *log, struct stream *src,
                                   int flags, int max_volumes);