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How to Zip Files in Mac OS X

OS X Daily

Make a Zip File in Mac OS X

Ever wondered how to make a zip file in Mac OS X? We recently demonstrated how to password protect zip archives, but in the comments a reader asked a more simple yet completely valid question: "what about just making a standard zip file?" Well, making zip files on a Mac is easy, and with compression tools built directly into OS X there is no need to download additional software or add-ons, here's how.

How to Make a Zip Archive in Mac OS X

You can use this to create zip files of files, folders, or both:

  • Right-click on a file, folder, or files you want to zip
  • Select "Compress Items"
  • Find the newly created .zip archive in the same directory

If a single file is being zipped, the zip archive will maintain the standard file name but append the .zip extension. If more than one file is being zipped, the archive will be named "Archive.zip", and if multiple archives are created, they will be named successively "Archive 2.zip" and so on.

Opening zip files is even easier, just double-click on the archive and it'll expand automatically with Archive Utility.

Zip archives can also be created from the command line by using the terminal command zip with the following syntax:
zip archive.zip file.txt

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