hi this is Gary with macmost.com let me
show you how to zip and unzip files on
your Mac
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content and course discounts so a zip
file is an archive containing one or
more files you would create a zip
archive to make it easier to transport a
group of files say sending it somebody
else in an email message it's easier to
send one file than say a group of 30 or
40 files this also compresses the files
making them smaller however today most
files are already really well compressed
if a document contains images they're
probably compressed images like jpeg if
you have an audio file or video file
it's probably already really well
compressed so you're only going to get a
little bit more out of compressing a
group of files into a zip archive Now to
create a zip archive it's pretty easy to
do if you're using Mac OS Ventura Mac OS
Monterey or even a few versions before
that there's a command you can get to
right in the finder you can just select
a file and then control click right
click or two finger click on a trackpad
and then that brings up the contacts
menu
then go to compress
simply select that and it will create a
zip archive from the file you had
selected it will use the same name as
the file but you don't have to keep that
same name you could go in and change it
to something else
and the contents will remain unchanged
whoever unzips it on the other end will
end up with that file back regardless of
what the actual zip archive is called
now you can also select multiple files
I'm going to do that using the command
key to select a second file and command
key to select a third file you could
also use shift to select a range
now with any one of those I can control
click on it and choose compress and it's
going to create an archive using all the
selected files
notice it calls this archive.zip which
you can now easily rename now to
decompress zip files it's fairly simple
all you need to do is double click the
file in the finder what it actually does
is open the zip file in the default app
which is an app you have on your Mac
called archive utility it's part of Mac
OS
matter of fact if you control click here
and you see open with you can see
archive utility is the default so if I
double click you can see it quickly ran
archive utility but archive utility did
was unzip it since I had selected
several files to create this ZIP file it
created a folder in the zip file and put
the files in there so by unzipping it I
get that folder called archive and
inside I can see those three files now
what if you wanted to use something else
besides archive you could easily rename
the zip file archive but how do you
rename the folder inside it well all you
need to do for that is actually create a
folder so here I've created a folder
with three files in it and if I choose
that folder and use compress
notice it calls the zip file by the name
of that folder just like it would do it
if you selected one file but now when
you go to decompress it later Watch What
Happens
I get that folder that was inside of it
back it didn't need to create an archive
folder to contain everything because if
it's just one item that folder so if you
want to use something besides the
archive.zip name with the archive folder
inside it just create your own folder
put the files in there and then zip that
folder now there are some settings for
this the settings are actually in that
archive utility so use Spotlight with
command space to find archive
utility.app
run it and then you'll see here the
archive utility it only has two commands
create archive and expand archive you
can use create archive to select a file
or folder and then create an archive
like this it's a lot easier to do in the
finder though you could also expand
archive and select a zip file and expand
it this way again it's easier to do this
in the finder by simply double clicking
but what running archive utility by
itself does get you is some settings if
you go to Archive utility settings
you'll see unzip or expansion settings
here at the top and zip or archiving
options here at the bottom only the
unzip options here at the top actually
work with the finder because the
compress command in the finder is
actually using some set options so
changing these like changing where the
archive is saved isn't going to affect
the compress command but double clicking
on a file actually runs archive utility
and uses these settings here so if
you're rather have expanded files go to
a specific directory rather than into
the sting directory as the archive you
can set that here you could also change
what happens after you expand the zip
archive instead of leaving it there you
can have it moved to the trash deleted
or moved to a folder of your choosing
you can also choose whether or not the
expanded items are selected after you
unzip and if unzipping should continue
in other words if there's a zip file
inside the zip file should it continue
expanding all zip files until it's done
or just do the top level zip file and
leave any zip files inside that as zip
files so if I change this to move
archive to trash and then I go to expand
this you'll see how it works differently
it expands it I get the result but that
zip file is now here in the trash now
one thing we're missing with archive
utility is the ability to make a zip
file that has a password set it's
encrypted well if you go to Archive
utility settings there's a save format
here called Apple encrypted archive that
will allow you to add a password and it
will encrypt the file but you won't get
a zip file from it you'll get an Apple
encrypted archive which probably won't
be useful unless you're sending it to
somebody else also using a Mac but you
still can create a password protected
zip file on your Mac you just need to
use terminal to do it now even if you
don't like using terminal this is a
fairly simple task to do in terminal let
me show you I'm going to use Spotlight
to find and launch the terminal app so
the first thing we want to do is we want
to go to the directory we're using right
here so I'm going to do CD for change
directory I'm going to drag in the
folder icon from the finder window here
this saves me for having to type this
out basically just my home folder
documents and files so now I'm actually
in this directory now it's much easier
to work I can do zip to zip the files I
can do Dash and then e for encryption
this will prompt us for our password and
encrypt the zip file with that password
R for recursion which means that if I
include a folder it's not just going to
include the folder but the contents of
the folder and in fact if there's a
folder inside that folder it'll include
the contents of that folder and so on so
in other words the normal way you would
expect it to work now just give it a
name for the archive Sarge caught stuff
dot zip and now I just type the names of
the files I want to include so let's do
test.rtf let's do test dot numbers and
let's do jet dot JPEG and let's include
also folder of stuff I'm going to put
that in quotes since there's spaces
like that I could always have selected
these items here
and copied and then pasted the names but
I don't necessarily want to drag and
drop because that gives me the full path
there that would actually create
problems in the zip file because it's
going to include that whole path so
let's just keep it simple like this I'll
hit return it's going to prompt you for
a password so I'll enter it once a
second time to verify and then you'll
see it working adding each of those
files there and you can see here I get
the results now decompressing you don't
need terminal or anything special just
double click and archive utility will
handle passwords just fine even though
you can't create zip files with
passwords you can unzip them so I'll
enter the password and then return
and it's going to create a folder with
that same name
and under it I could see those files I
can see that folder and the files that
were in that folder to make it a lot
easier I really recommend creating a
folder to contain everything that you
want to zip up and then just having one
thing that you can add here
instead of having to type multiple names
so there's how to zip files unzip files
and even create a password protected zip
file on your Mac hope you found this
useful thanks for watching
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