How to create compressed archive ZIP files with Mac OS X Published on: February 7, 2019 by Tarun Bhardwaj Since you need to create a compressed archive using your Apple computer, you are looking for a solution to do it completely free, perhaps if you are a beginner with macOS.
Compressed (i.e., archived or zipped) files may contain many separatefiles in one large archive, which often take up less space than theoriginal files. Before you can read or run all the separate files andprograms, you must use an archiving program to extract the files fromthe archive.
Many shareware and freeware programs existthat have this ability. The best archivers allow you to do suchthings as look at the compressed files before extraction, select whichfiles you want to extract, and allow drag-and-drop operations. Theymight also support a large variety of different archive file types,such as tar, GNU, Zip (Unix andMac OS X), Zip (Windows), and StuffIt (MacOS and Mac OS X). To allow transfer of binary filesby email, some archivers have various coding schemes, such asuuencoding, built in.
You can find archive programs at most FTP sites and on theweb at many shareware sites. For more information, see the 'Also see:'section below.
Note: You cannot download archived files using anASCII file transfer. If you are transferring an archivedfile by FTP or SFTP, be sure that your file transfer typeis set to binary. Many current file transfer programs willautomatically select the correct setting, and graphic file transferclients typically have an option that allows you to specify a binarytransfer manually. To set your program manually in a command-line FTPor SFTP program, at the FTP or SFTP prompt, enter: