Zipping on Mac: is it not supposed to reduce the size of the folder?

Question

I just zipped a folder, using the "create archive" command. However, while the size of my original folder is 23.6 MB, the size of the zipped folder is reduced only to 23.4 MB. That means this zip folder is as large as the original. Could anybody tell me why is that? Also, since I am trying to send this over the e-mail, it seems that it is too large to go through. What is the solution? Thanks guys.

Answer 1

If your contents are text documents, images, then those would compress better.

I use http://www.yousendit.com to send large files to people....both users need to create a free user account, but other than that it works pretty good. It holds files up to 100MB for a week.

Answer 2

a .zip file format is not that much smaller then the contents in it. its for send alot of files and files in a single .zip file. .rar is a better format for reducing file size.

Answer 3

Try 7-zip or something to zip it up with more compression. In linux I use .tar.bz2 .tar.gz and .tar.lzma, they usually work.

Answer 4

Some file types are not as compressible as others. You could split the zip file during the zip creation process. You could upload to a web server for the other person to download from. There are numerous free file sharing sites you can upload to.

Answer 5

some file types are hard to compress becous they are close to raw data (like avi, mp3, and others)

compressing is writing the data more efficient, so it cannot always be done.

Answer 6

It all depends on compression or not. If you use compression software to reduce the size of a file like making a JPEG image from a TIFF image or an mp3 from and aiff sound file, that would make the file a lot smaller and actually reduce the quality as well.

Zipping or archiving a file would not do this. Zipping (archiving) is good for taking many files within a folder and creating a single file - handy for emailing and archiving on disks, etc.

Answer 7

Depends on the types of files in the folders - some files cannot be compressed much beyond their current file size (such as a jpeg).

Send one file at a time - or zip them into small chunks.