Compress and uncompress files (zip files)

Compressed files take up less storage space and can be transferred to other computers more quickly than uncompressed files. You can work with compressed files and folders in the same way that you work with uncompressed files and folders. You can also combine several files into a single compressed folder. This makes it easier to share a group of files.

To Compressed

 1. Locate the file or folder that you want to compress. 2. Right-click the file or folder, point to Send to, and then click Compressed (zipped) folder. A new compressed folder is created in the same location. To rename it, right-click the folder, click Rename, and then type the new name. 

To Extract

 1. Locate the compressed folder that you want to extract files or folders from. 2. Do one of the following: To extract a single file or folder, double-click the compressed folder to open it. Then, drag the file or folder from the compressed folder to a new location. To extract the entire contents of the compressed folder, right-click the folder, click Extract All, and then follow the instructions. 

OS X Mountain Lion: Compress and uncompress files and folders  Compressed files take up less disk space than uncompressed files, so compressing is useful for making backup copies of your data or for sending information over the Internet. To compress a file or folder, Control-click it or tap it using two fingers, and then choose Compress from the shortcut menu. If you compress a single item, the compressed file has the name of the original item with the .zip extension. If you compress multiple items at once, the compressed file is called Archive.zip. To uncompress (expand) an item, double-click the .zip file. Last Modified: Aug 8, 2013