The quickest and easiest way to zip files is to select them in the Finder using Command-click and then right-click or control-click the selected files and choose Compress from the contextual menu. However, if you have a tool like Better Zip or The Unarchiver, you will be able to choose one of those. If Archive Utility is the only unzipping utility you have installed, it will be the only option available.

You can also unzip a file by right-clicking or control-clicking it and choosing Open With. The most common is the Roshal Archive (RAR), which has a ‘.rar’ suffix. In addition to archives that have the ‘.zip’ suffix, the term zip file or zip archive is also sometimes used to describe archives that are created and compressed in another format. In addition, you can secure zip archives so that they can only be opened by someone who knows the password. Before you send lots of sheets of paper, you would bundle them up, wrap them to keep them secure and make the package as small as possible to keep the postage cost as low as it can be. Think of them like a package you would send through the post. Zip files are archives that contain multiple compressed files.

In this article, we’ll explain what a zip archive is, when you might need to use it and how to extract files on a Mac, as well as how to create zip archives.

However, you share files, whether on a USB stick or online, saving space by compressing the files is important. In the early days, files were shared on floppy disks, then on CD and DVD, until ubiquitous internet connections meant that sharing files online was the easiest and most common method. Mac users have been sharing files for as long as there have been Macs. But to help you do it all by yourself, we’ve gathered our best ideas and solutions below. So here's a tip for you: Download CleanMyMac to quickly solve some of the issues mentioned in this article.

Mac zip folder