ZIP Creator

Collect the documents for an application, a tax return or a project hand-over into one file so nothing goes missing. Send a folder of photos or design files to a client in one download. Back up a project folder before making big changes. Upload several files to a form or website that accepts only one. Because the ZIP keeps the folder structure, the person who opens it sees the files organised exactly as you had them, on Windows, Mac, Linux, Android or iPhone.

ZIP compresses each file separately with the Deflate method. How much it helps depends on the files: text, documents, spreadsheets and uncompressed images shrink a lot, while photos, videos, MP3s and files that are already compressed hardly change.

When you add a folder, every file keeps its path inside it, so the person who opens the ZIP gets the same folder structure. If two files would end up with the same path, the second is renamed to “name (2).ext” rather than replacing the first. Names are cleaned of characters that Windows doesn't allow in file names and of path tricks such as “..”, so the archive opens cleanly everywhere. The ZIP name defaults to the name of the folder you added.

A ZIP keeps many files together and makes sure nothing gets lost or reordered. Email services usually limit attachments to 20 or 25 MB; if your ZIP is larger, use a file-sharing link or split the files into several ZIPs. To make photos or PDFs inside the ZIP smaller first, use the Image Compressor or Compress PDF tools — that saves far more space than ZIP compression for those files.

Your files are read from your device and packed in the browser; nothing is sent to a server. The ZIP uses the standard format with UTF-8 file names, which Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and iOS all open without extra software. Password protection isn't offered, because the only ZIP encryption a browser library can produce reliably is the old, easily broken kind — for confidential files, use an encrypted archive tool or share them through a secure service.