Archive utility Mac apps: the best way to compress files

Cataloging. While archiving, the entire file structure with folders, subfolders, files in them, is compressed into one file. When unpacking the archive, you will get exactly the same structure. Imagine that you need to transfer over the network all the contents of a disk, let’s say D (E, G, F the letter doesn’t matter). And there are hundreds or thousands of folders on it…

It will take a lot of time to transfer them considering the fact that online data storages usually cannot upload more than one or several files at a time. With Mac archiver utilities everything is simple – you create an archive of a disk D and transfer all the data in a single file (archive). After unpacking you will have an exact copy of your disk D on the remote computer.

Compression. Almost any files on a computer can be compressed using special algorithms, reducing their size. Sometimes it is possible to reduce the size of the archive compared to the original data several times. Of course, you cannot use the data until you unpack it, but if you store rarely used information on your hard drive, then archiving it is the best way to save disk space. Below in this article, you will find an answer on “How to compress files on Mac with ease?”

Data safety. Archive software provides the ability to add to the archive recovery information, which will help restore the archive if it is damaged (for example, on a bad hard drive or external media). It is obvious that this will increase the archive size. However, taking into account the compression of the files, you will not notice much difference compared to the size of the original data. Besides that, if you need to hide files from someone’s eyes, then archiving files with a subsequent password is an excellent solution. Most archiver programs have this feature and you can easily set a password that protects the necessary data. Be serious about choosing a password in this case, it should not be too simple and obvious, but it is important to remember it because there will be no recovery path with secret questions. This method is also not ideal, more and more programs appear on the network that can pick up passwords and crack archives.

Space-saving. If your hard drive is not large enough and there is always not enough space, try storing files that you do not want to delete or simply feel pity to delete in archives. For example, working documents, which you have on your computer just in case, as files placed in the archive are not deleted from their usual place on the computer. So if you want to save space, compress files on Mac and feel free to delete files after archiving them, as it can be unpacked at any time.

It is important to remember that not all files are compressed with significant savings, for example, the size of photos is reduced from every 100 MB by only a few MB and at the same time, Microsoft Word documents or files in the Adobe Photoshop graphics editor are compressed significantly: from fifty MB to three MB. Music and video files are also compressed slightly, but if their number is impressive, then you can add it to the archive.

File transfer. When transferring files on the Internet, for example, by e-mail or on Skype, we cannot attach the entire folder to the message, but only individual photos or documents. Therefore, it is extremely convenient to make one file out of many elements for transmission, in this case, the archiver comes to the rescue. For example, you can send the entire folder “Holiday photos” at once, creating from them a single file – an archive. What is also worth mentioning is that its transmission will be faster than usual, because the size has become smaller.