How To Zip Files

This lesson teaches you how to zip up files and email them.

How to zip up files:

• Put the file or files you want to zip up into a common place (i.e., a folder)
• Click and hold the left mouse button, and then drag the cursor over the files
• Once you see that they are selected, right-click and choose Send To —> Compressed (zipped) Folder
• The zip file will appear in the same folder as your files. You may rename the zip file or leave the default name

Zipping a file or files can be very useful. Usually, zipping up files will make the overall size smaller, which may help you when you want to email large or multiple files. Here are some common email size limits:

• Yahoo! Mail: 10 MB
• GMail (Google Mail): 20 MB
• Hotmail (Windows Live Mail): 10 MB

Note: Please contact your email provider for their size limit if they are not listed here.

These size limits do not refer to the size of the attachment allowed: they are the size of the total email allowed. There is overhead due to header information and the like, which may take up to 30% of the email size. A good rule to follow is to make your attachments no more than 5 MB for a 10 MB account, 10 MB for a 20 MB account, etc.

By the way, here's some computer lingo on sizes:

• 1 Kilobyte = 1024 Bytes
• 1 Megabyte = 1024 Kilobytes
• 1 Gigabyte = 1024 Megabytes

Zip files are great to clean up clutter too on your own hard drive. If you want to open a previously created zip file to add more files to it, it's easy:

• Left double-click on the zip file
• It should open and look like any other folder
• Drag files into it, or delete files you no longer want in it
• When you're done, just close the zip file like you'd close a folder