Compression profile is a set of different compression options, which can be quickly retrieved before starting an archiving operation. Instead of specifying an archive type, a volume size, a compression method and other options each time when you need to make a new archive, you may create several profiles storing options for your typical archiving operations and later select a required profile from the menu to restore all the options.
Compression profiles have user assigned names displayed in the profiles list. You may select a profile in Archive name and parameters dialog, just press the "Profiles" button, choose a required profile name in the drop down list and all options saved in the profile will be restored. WinRAR provides a few predefined profiles, for example, for creating an e-mail attachment and for files backup, but you may delete them if you wish.
There are two ways to create a new profile. You may open "Archive name and parameters" dialog, set the desired options, press the button "Profiles" and select the menu item "Save current settings to a new profile". Appearing Profile parameters dialog contains the profile name field, where you should enter a name of the new profile. A few profile options are also available in this dialog. The most important option is "Set profile as default". If you set it, the profile will be automatically selected before every archiving and some archive modification operations. Other options allow to save archive and file names, create a shortcut on Desktop and immediately run archiving after selecting a profile. Read the description of the Profile parameters dialog for detailed information about these options.
Another method of creating a new profile is to press "Create default" button in Compression settings dialog. In this case you only need to set desired archiving options in the displayed dialog and press "OK" button. The new profile created by this method becomes the default profile with the name "Default Profile". Unlike the first, this method does not provide access to advanced profile parameters such as storing archive and file names or creating a shortcut and it is convenient to create the default profile without additional questions. But if you need more flexibility, use the first method.
You cannot change compression options stored in a profile, but it is possible to change profile parameters, for example, its name or default status. To edit profile parameters or to delete existing profiles use the Organize profiles command, which is accessible from both the profiles menu in "Archive name and parameters" dialog and from the "Compression settings" dialog. Using this command you may assign a new profile as default or remove the default status from profile.
It is possible to store a password in profile, but please be aware that it is stored in Registry in insecure format. So anybody having access to your computer may be able to retrieve the stored password.