Zip files are often used to send large attachments via email, or to download multiple files from a website at once. What is a Zip File?Ī zip file is a compressed file that can be used to store large amounts of data. In this article, we’ll explore how you can easily zip a file on your Mac to save storage space. Zipping a file isn’t as complicated as people think.

Zipping a file on Mac can be used to shrink it to half its normal size. It’s called Archive Utility, and can be found via a Spotlight search.ZIP is one of the most popular compression formats. You can change the destination of your compressed files by opening the app that does the compression. How to make zip files save somewhere else You can use a free app such asįolderWasher to remove dot files before creating the zip. These are Mac system files and can be ignored. Note that Windows users decompressing your zip will also see ‘dot files’ – files and folders whose filenames are preceded by dots or sometimes underscores (such as ‘.DS_Store’ or ‘_MACOSX’). Once zipping has completed, drag the folder you created to the Trash.

Then hold down Ctrl and click the folder, selecting the Compress option on the menu.

Drag and drop the files you want to be in the zip, but hold down Alt before releasing the mouse button so the files are copied there. To compress several files and/or folders, create a new folder (Shift +Ĭmd + N) within Finder or on the desktop and name it whatever you want the zip to be called. You can delete the original file if you wish, but you won’t be able to view or use the zipped file in its present form: you’ll need to unzip it first.

zip file can now be emailed to a friend or simply stored until needed.

Open zip files on mac