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Agar has been widely used in the food, pharmaceutical and medical fieldsand has been traditionally extracted by soaking the macroalgae for up to 4 h at boiling temperatures. Traditional methods are often energy intensive and therefore extraction technologies are currently being investigated in order to pursue more sustainable form of extraction. This study focused on the extraction of agar from Gelidium sesquipedale by means a combination of an acid pre-treatment (citric or acetic acid) followed by autoclaving at different time/temperature combinations. It was found that among all the conditions tested (10, 15 and 20 min) and (100, 110, and 120 °C), the best condition was (20 min, 110 °C) by means of a citric acid pre-treatment, reporting a yield of 31.69 ± 3.5% (g extract per g dried G. sesquipedale), and a gel strength of 183.78 ± 36.80 g cm⁻².