How To Convert A Folder To A Zip File Mac

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Have you received an email with a ZIP file attachment, and you didn’t know what to do with it? Just like regular digital folders, you can easily open a ZIP file on almost any computer or operating system. But, unlike regular folders, you need more than just a simple double-click to use the files inside it. Here’s how to open a ZIP file on a Windows PC, Mac, iPhone, and Android devices.

  1. Creating Zip Files on Mac. You will see an empty Untitled.zip file in the WinZip window. Drag your files into the WinZip window. Click Add and choose the location of your files form the drop down (from your Mac, iCloud Drive or cloud services).
  2. Convert your mac files to doc online & free. Image Converter. Drop files here. 100 MB maximum file size or Sign Up.
  3. Sep 23, 2021 Opening a ZIP file is as effortless as double clicking the folder and opening the individual files or folders in the zip. However, some folders require an unzipping too to extract the files. To open the documents or files in a zipped folder, right click on the zipped file and select “Extract All” which will decompress the files to their.
  4. Answer (1 of 6): Easy peasy. You don’t even need any external software to do this. For both Windows and Mac users, all you have to do is: 1. Click on the PDF you wish to zip.

How to Zip a File in Windows. If you’re using a Windows PC, and you want to create a zip file for easy transport, or you plan to email several files, follow the steps below: Put all the files you want to zip in the same folder. Make sure they are in the same location. Next, right-click on the folder containing your files and folders you want.

What is a ZIP File?

A ZIP file is a type of file format that contains compressed filesand folders for the purpose of archiving, storage, and/or transmission. It istreated as one file when being transferred or transmitted from one digitalstorage space to another. These files have the file extension “.zip” atthe end of their name.

Most operating systems have built-in software that can create and open ZIP files. But there is also third-party software you can use, such as WinZip, 7zip, and WinRAR, that can also do the same.

How to Open a ZIP File on Windows 10

If you’re using a PC at home, you can easily open a ZIP file with thebuilt-in Windows Compressed Folder.To open a ZIP file using this Windows 10 feature, simply follow the stepsbelow:

  1. Locate the ZIP file you want to open. If you downloaded the ZIP file from the internet or as an email attachment, you might find it in the Downloads folder in your System Drive.
  2. Right-click on the ZIP file and select “Extract All…” Once you select “Extract All,” you will get a new pop-up menu.
  3. In the pop-up menu, select a location to extract the files. If you want your files to be extracted in another location, click “Browse” and select your destination in the pop-up window.
  4. Once you’ve selected a destination folder, click “OK.”

    Note: Make sure to check “Show extracted files when complete” so you can immediately find the unzipped files after it is opened and extracted.

  5. Finally, click “Extract” in the pop-up menu. The built-in software will start extracting the files from inside the ZIP folder.

Once the extraction is complete, a window will pop-up, displayingall the extracted files from the ZIP file.

How to Open ZIP Files on Mac?

File

If you have a Mac, you can still easily unzip orextract files from a ZIP file using Mac’s Archive Utility tool. Here’s how toopen a ZIP file using the Archive Utility tool in Mac:

  1. Locate the ZIP file you want to open. If you’re not sure where you stored the ZIP file after downloading it, check the Downloads folder.
  2. Double-click the ZIP file. This will automatically begin the file extraction, which may take a few seconds to a few minutes, depending on the number and size of the files being extracted.

When the extraction is complete, a window will pop up to displaythe extracted files or folders. If no window opens up after the extraction iscomplete, simply locate the extracted folder to display the extractedfiles.

How to Open a ZIP File on Android Devices

For Android phones, you will needto download and install a zip file opener, such as the Files app from Google Play Store, to extract files from a ZIP file. The application comespre-installed on many Android phones. To check if you already have the app, tapthe Apps button, which looks like a square of four or nine dots on your homescreen.

  1. Open the Files app. If you’re going through the initial setup, you may have to give the app access to photos, media, and files in your device. Click Allow to do this.
  2. Then click Browse at the bottom of your screen.
  3. Locate the ZIP file you want to extract. If you’ve downloaded it as an attachment from an email, you may find it in the “Download” folder.
  4. Tap the file you want to open and then tap Extract. This will open a list of the files in the ZIP folder.
  5. Finally, tap Done. You can access any of the files by tapping “All” at the top of your screen and then clicking the downward arrow next to the right of a file. Then tap “Open with” and choose an application.

How to Open Zip Files on an iPhone

Much like with Mac computers, iPhones and other Apple devices havea default feature that allows you to see your ZIP files. However, to actuallyextract workable files from a ZIP file on your mobile device, you need toinstall an archiving application such as iZip from the App Store. Much like the Files app for Android, iZip isa free application so no need to worry about fees or subscription costs.

  1. Download, install, and open the iZip app.
  2. Then tap Files at the top of your screen. This will only work after you have downloaded the ZIP file to your iPhone.
  3. Locate the ZIP file you want to extract files from. If you’ve downloaded the file from a website or an email, check for the ZIP file inside your Files app.

    Note: If you do not see your ZIP file in Files, go back to the ZIP file and select the “send to” button. Then tap “More” and select “Copy to iZip.”

  4. Tap the ZIP file you want to extract. Then, tap and hold for a second or two to open a pop-up menu.
  5. Finally, tap OK in the pop-up. This will automatically unzip (or extract) all the files in the ZIP folder. Depending on the size, this may take a few seconds to a few minutes.
How

Once you have extracted all the filesand folders, you can view them through the iZip app. If you want to open a filewith a certain app, tap the “Open In” button at the bottom of your screen.

Now that you know how to open a ZIP file on Windows, Mac, iPhone, and Android, check out our article on how to zip a file or create zip files.

HelloTech editors choose the products and services we write about. When you buy through our links, we may earn a commission.

Updated on August 31, 2021

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Part of our digital day-to-day lives right now, whether personal or work-related, is the constant sharing of files. It could be a photo album from the latest trip or a collection of financial reports from the last quarter — our goal in all cases is to make sure the files arrive intact.

While it’s relatively easy to share one file over email or a cloud storage solution — sharing folders or multiple files at once is often a challenge. If you share too many files, they become hard to manage and some of them could get lost or overlooked. If you put them in a folder, it often arrives empty. Similarly, when you share an app (which is essentially a folder), most likely it won’t work on another Mac. So what do you do?

A great solution is to archive whatever you’re about to send before you send it. Archives keep the files and relationships between them exactly the same — with the added benefits of only having to deal with a single file that could also weigh less due to compression.

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There are lots of formats for archiving files. Some of the most famous are RAR and ZIP. Let’s look at the differences between them, how to use them, and how to convert RAR to ZIP and back at any moment.

What’s The Difference Between RAR and ZIP?

Both RAR and ZIP are incredibly popular when it comes to creating archives. But they are also not the same and are used with slightly different goals in mind.

ZIP is one of the original archive formats created in 1989 by Phil Katz. It’s open-source and supported by all major operating systems right out of the box. ZIP also supports light compression and password-based encryption.

RAR, on the other hand, was developed by Eugene Roshal in 1993 (RAR stands for Roshal Archive). Even though the format is available to all, it’s not open source due to limitations set on reverse engineering. Unlike ZIP, you do need third-party software to open or create RAR formats, but you get the benefit of much better compression.

Historically, RAR has been predominantly used on Windows, while ZIP acceptance is universal. For this reason, a frequent question is how to turn a RAR file into a ZIP and what’s a good RAR to ZIP converter available for Mac.

How to convert RAR to ZIP on Mac

Doing a quick research online, you’ll come across dozens of websites claiming to convert RAR to ZIP archives for free. But it’s not always a good idea to trust a free website you don’t know. If the conversion works, it might not be of the best quality. More likely, however, that you might get some malware installed in your files or some of your files being copied elsewhere on the website’s server.

It’s much better to work with any kind of archives directly on your Mac. Even though you can archive and unarchive files with ZIP format using your Mac’s default Archive Utility (just right-click the file and choose Compress or double-click to uncompress), it doesn’t work like that with RAR files. You’d need to use some proven archival software.

BetterZip is one of the most powerful compression tools available on Mac today. With support for over 30 archival formats, this app quickly creates new archives and un-compresses pretty much any zipped file sent your way, including RAR.

The key feature of BetterZip is in how you can peek into the archive folders and files without even unarchiving them, just like you’d do with Finder. You can take files out of the archive or add new ones, rename things as you see fit, etc. You can even set strong passwords and automate repetitive workflows with AppleScript.

Here’s how to manage your RAR files with BetterZip:

How To Zip A File On Mac

  1. Launch BetterZip
  2. Drag and drop your RAR archive onto the app
  3. Feel free to drag files out of the archive one by one, or use Quick Look to peek into the files, or extract all files by clicking Extract in the top bar

The only thing you can’t do with BetterZip is actually create RAR archives. For that, you need a special archiving utility like Archiver.

Archiver is a lightweight Mac app that is so intuitive you often forget how powerful it really is. This utility can archive and unarchive dozens of formats, including RAR, and also convert one archival format into the other without unzipping the files first. In addition, you can preview files in any archive, extract anything selectively, split one archive into many to decrease file size or combine a few archives into a single one. Finally, set passwords and fine-tune the level of compression you’re looking for — all in one app!

So to convert RAR to ZIP with Archiver:

  1. Launch Archiver
  2. Drag and drop your RAR archive into the app
  3. Select Convert from the bottom menu
  4. Choose ZIP
  5. Rename your new archive, pick compression level, and set a password if you need to
  6. Click Convert when done

How to reduce RAR archive file size

The only major advantage of RAR as an archival format over ZIP is much better compression (up to 11% better), since ZIP is generally regarded as lossless.

But what do you do when your RAR archive is still too large for your purposes? Here, a regular lossless RAR to ZIP converter won’t help — you need an app that would include some level of compression.

Archiver comes to the rescue again:

  1. Open your RAR archive in Archiver
  2. Select Convert
  3. Choose ZIP, or even better 7ZIP (which has better compression)
  4. In the Compression Level dropdown, pick Highest
  5. Click Convert

If compressing your archive by conversion is not enough, your only other option is splitting it into a few equally sized archives. Luckily, Archiver can handle it in seconds:

  1. Drop your RAR archive into Archiver
  2. Choose Split
  3. Set the “Chunk size” to a specific amount of KB, MB, or GB (select in the dropdown)
  4. Click Split
  5. Drag your resulting split archives to anywhere on your Mac

As you can see, there are more than a few ways for how to turn a RAR file into a ZIP. Sadly, there’s no easy way to do it on your Mac by default, and you should avoid all the free websites that claim to do so right away. Your best bet is to use BetterZip for professional unarchiver, and Archiver for all the archiving, converting and splitting.

Best of all, both BetterZip and Archiver are available to you absolutely free for seven days through the trial of Setapp, a platform with more than 210 top Mac apps for any task you can imagine, from surfing the web safely (ClearVPN) to managing your budget (MoneyWiz) to upgrading your calendar (BusyCal). Try every Setapp app at no cost today and see what you’ve been missing out on!

How To Convert A Folder To A Zip File Mac Mini

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How To Convert A Folder To A Zip File Mac Free