Someone once said you can never be too rich or too skinny; You can also add that you can never have too much storage space. One way to save space on your Mac is to compress (or ‘zip’) files and folders so they take up less space, and it’s also a good idea if you plan to send them to someone else.
In this article, we show how to zip a file on your Mac, how to unzip (or ‘unzip’) it, and how to password-protect the resulting zipped file so only the recipient can see it. Keir Thomas contributed to this article.
How to Compress a File on Mac
Convert a conventional file (whether it be an image, video, music file, document, or other type ) or a folder in a Compressed zip file is very easy on a Mac:
- Right-click (or Ctrl-click) the file or folder and select ‘Zip [name]’.
- Wait a moment (very large files or folders with many files may take a while) and a new .zip file will appear in the same location as the original file (unless you chose a different destination , see below). You will hear the system alert sound to indicate the process is complete.
That’s it! This .zip file can now be emailed to a friend or simply stored until needed. You can delete the original file if you want, but you won’t be able to see or use the archive in its current form: you’ll need to unzip it first.
Zip Multiple Files
To zip multiple files and/ or folders, create a new folder (Shift + Cmd + N) inside Finder or on the desktop and name it whatever you want the zip to be called. Drag and drop the files you want to be in the zip, but hold down the Alt key before releasing the mouse button so the files are copied there. Then hold down the Ctrl key and click on the folder, selecting the Compress option from the menu. Once the compression is complete, drag the folder you created to the Trash.
Note that Windows users who unzip your zip will also see ‘dot files’ – files and folders whose names Filenames are preceded by periods or sometimes underscores (such as ‘.DS_Store’ or ‘_MACOSX’). These are Mac system files and can be ignored. You can use a free app like FolderWasher to remove dot files before creating the zip.
How to make zip files save somewhere else
You can change the destination of your files compressed by opening the application that does the compression. It’s called Archive Utility and can be found via a Spotlight search.
Open Archive Utility, then click the Archive Utility drop-down menu at the top of the screen and select Preferences. Click on the menu labeled ‘Save File’, select ‘to’ and then choose a new destination. (By default, it will save the zip file in the same location as the original file.)
How to open (or ‘unzip’) a zip file on Mac
This is even more easy than the last bit. Just double click on a zip file and it will open by itself. The zip file will still be in its original location, but an unzipped copy will appear next to it.
If you need to unzip a non-zip file, for example a .rar file, then install The Unarchiver. This is free from the App Store and works exactly the same way as the built-in zip tool: just double-click the zip file and the files and folders will automatically extract to the same location.
To To preview the contents of files with the Quick Look feature in macOS, install the free BetterZip Quick Look generator.
Automatically extract ‘safe’ files from zips
Some Web browsers decompress what they consider to be safe files automatically when you download them (in the case of Safari, safe files include image files such as Jpegs, PDFs, and movies); this may be something you’d rather not have happen.
If you’re on Safari, go to the Safari dropdown menu, then Preferences, and select the General tab. Then check or uncheck the ‘Open ‘safe’ files after download’ option.
How to Password Protect Zip Files
Finally, a challenge! This is a bit more difficult, but worth it if you’re sending a sensitive file or document through an unsecured messaging system. We can encrypt the zip file so that anyone, on Mac or PC, has to enter the password to use or view the file or folder.
In fact, the process isn’t really scary: you just need to spend a few moments in Terminal. The ‘-e’ command will tell Terminal to encrypt the zip file.
Open Terminal (it’s in Applications > Utilities, or you can use Spotlight to find it) and type the following. (Type Enter after each line.)
We’ll pretend the file to be compressed is named macworld.jpg and located on the desktop, but you’ll need to change the relevant bits to make it right for you. If it’s a folder instead of a file, we’ll need to use slightly different code, so see the section on folders below.
cd Desktop
zip -e macworld.zip macworld.jpg
At this point, Terminal will ask you to enter a password. As you type this, nothing will appear to appear, but it’s designed that way, so don’t worry: just press Enter once you’re done, and then repeat when it asks you to verify your password.
Whatever password you enter, you will need to enter it again to unzip the zip file.
Let’s look at that code again, but this time we’ll use square brackets to indicate the bits you need to change. Do not include the square brackets!
cd [file location]
zip -e [new_file_name].zip [old_file_name]. [file type extension]
Note that the zip file can have the same file name as the original (except with a .zip extension) or a different one.
Warning : Spaces in file or folder names.
If possible, we recommend that you rename the file or folder you are compressing so that it does not have spaces in the name, because this wreaks havoc in Terminal. (You can replace the spaces with underscores, which looks reasonably neat.) If you absolutely must include spaces, you’ll need to modify your code so that spaces are preceded by a (you still need to include the space).
Let’s say we renamed our original file from ‘macworld.jpg’ to ‘macworld.jpg’. Now instead of
zip -e macworld.zip macworld.jpg
we would write
zip -e mac world.zip mac world.jpg
What if it’s a folder, instead of a file?
This time, instead of a file extension, I’d use the ‘-er’ command instead of ‘-e’. This tells Terminal to zip the folder’s contents.
If we imagine we’re zipping a folder named macworld, we’d type:
zip -er macworld. zip macworld
How to open a password-protected zip file
You (or the recipient of your encrypted zip file) don’t need to worry about Terminal, just double-click click on the zip file as usual and then enter the password when prompted. It will unzip as usual.
Alternative Compression Tools
Most Mac users have been happily using zips for years, but some people still use StuffIt, which is still a powerful application capable of doing things that Mac’s built-in zip tool cannot, such as create a wider variety of file formats.
To use it, simply drag and drop the file or folder onto the Zip tile in StuffIt interface. The file will be created instantly.
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