It’s called Archive Utility, and can be found via a Spotlight search. You can change the destination of your compressed files by opening the app that does the compression. How to make zip files save somewhere else This action will automatically extract the contents and place them in the parent folder. To extract the contents of a Mac ZIP file, you can easily do so by double-clicking on the file either in Finder or on the desktop. You can use a free app such asįolderWasher to remove dot files before creating the zip. Lastly, the process to unzip files on Mac is relatively simple. These are Mac system files and can be ignored. Note that Windows users decompressing your zip will also see ‘dot files’ – files and folders whose filenames are preceded by dots or sometimes underscores (such as ‘.DS_Store’ or ‘_MACOSX’). Once zipping has completed, drag the folder you created to the Trash. Then hold down Ctrl and click the folder, selecting the Compress option on the menu. Drag and drop the files you want to be in the zip, but hold down Alt before releasing the mouse button so the files are copied there. To compress several files and/or folders, create a new folder (Shift +Ĭmd + N) within Finder or on the desktop and name it whatever you want the zip to be called. You can delete the original file if you wish, but you won’t be able to view or use the zipped file in its present form: you’ll need to unzip it first. zip file can now be emailed to a friend or simply stored until needed.
