Open ZIP File

ZIP Advanced Options

ZIP is the most advanced file compression and decompression on the market. It is available for all the popular operating systems and exists in a form of console application and GUI packages. Still only limited part of its functionality is used because most users are not aware about some advanced options provided by ZIP.

Compression Ratio

User can control how efficiently ZIP will try to compress the data. Typically, compression ratio settings are set as a number which ranges from 0 to 9 where 0 is no compression and 9 is highest compression. Accordingly, 0 is the fastest since there is no CPU load and 9 is the slowest. Use -0 to -9 options to specify compression level.

Update existing archive

It is possible to update an existing archive using ZIP utility. It is useful when you have a source code or documents which you are constantly changing and want to have the most recent version of it in ZIP archive. Instead of recreating ZIP archive every time you can either ask ZIP to only update files which were changed, or update changed files and add new ones from the source folders. Use -f option to update only changed files and -u option to update changed files and add new ones.

Comments for a file or an archive

It is possible to add comments to each individual file or/and to the entire ZIP archive. If you specify -c option when creating ZIP archive, it will ask you for comments for each file you are adding to an archive. If you specify -z option, you will be asked to enter a comment for an entire archive.

Recursive storage

If you want to store files from a folder including all subfolders you can specify -r option to make ZIP look recursively in all subfolders.

Encrypt ZIP file content

To encrypt ZIP file, specify -e option when creating a ZIP archive. ZIP utility will ask you to enter a password to protect an archive. Make sure to choose long and complex password since length of the password and its complexity makes it more difficult for hackers to break it.