Step 1: Right-click or select Control + Tap on the file you want, and choose Get Info from the resulting menu. You can change file permissions by following these steps: Perhaps you cannot compress files because file permissions aren’t letting you. MacOS has engineered a handy system of organization in which you can find decompressed files and zip files in the same newly created folder. Unzipping software like The Unarchiver is also available to use if your computer doesn’t have a set unzipping feature that you can default to. Your zip file will open automatically with a click of your mouse or touchpad.Īlternatively, right-click or press Control + Tap on a zip file, hover over Open With on the pop-up menu, and then choose Archive Utility. There’s nothing complicated about unzipping a zip file. This is useful if you need to create multiple zip files or to make it easier for the recipient to know what’s in the archive. Step 3: To rename the default Archive.zip file name, simply right-click or press Control + Tap on the archive and select Rename. As before, the original files remain intact.

Step 2: Right-click or press Control + Tap and select Compress on the pop-up menu.Ī new, single archive will appear in the folder. Alternatively, press the Command button while tapping the trackpad or while clicking the mouse button to select specific files. Step 1: Hold down the mouse button or trackpad to draw a box around all the files you want to compress. Right-click or press Control + Tap on a file you want to compress and select Compress on the pop-up menu.Īs shown below, a new zip file appears in the same folder, while the original file remains. How to create a zip file on a MacĬreating a zip file on a Mac is quick and easy, as MacOS includes a built-in tool called Archive Utility for compressing and unzipping files. When you download a compressed file, you will need to extract the contents - or “unzip” them - in order to access them.

Another popular form of compressed, or archived, data is RAR. Compression can also permanently remove unnecessary bits, albeit at the cost of a perfect replica (lossy). Compression can temporarily remove redundancies in the files, which can then be re-created (lossless). Zip files are a way to compress your data to make it more compact and quicker to transfer. If you want to secure your zip files with a password, we have a guide for that too.

Thanks to this guide, you’ll become a pro at zipping and unzipping files between your Mac, iPad, and iPhone in no time.

Select all files on mac