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Understand what zip files are and how to extract the contents to a folder.

Quick reference

Extract Zip Files

Extract files that have been compressed in a zip file. 

When to use

We need to extract files whenever we need to work with files that have been compressed into a zip file. 

Instructions

A zip file is an archive file that contains other files. It's a way of compressing files to make the overall size smaller. For example, maybe we have a colleague who needs to send us 50 large files. The most efficient way to do this would be to upload them to a shared folder in the cloud but occasionally we might need to send them another way. It's hard to email 50 large files and the recipient might work at an organization that blocks files that exceed a certain size limit. 

We get around this by compressing files and adding them to a zip file. 

When we receive a zip file from someone else, we can't just open it like a regular folder and start working on the files, we need to extract them from the zip first, a process called unzipping. 

Extract Files from a Zip

If we've been sent a zip file as an email attachment, we need to download it to our PC first. Once downloaded, we can unzip it. 

  • Open File Explorer. 
  • Navigate to the folder where the zip file is stored.

If we have File Explorer set to view the details, we can see that the folder has an extension of .zip and a type of compressed zipped folder. 

  • Double-click to open the zip folder. 

At this stage, it looks like a regular folder that contains files but it is recommended that we do not open and edit inside the zip file.

  • Select the extracted folder. 
  • Press CTRL+C to copy it. 
  • Navigate to another folder. 
  • Press CTRL+V to paste it. 

Alternatively, we can select the zip folder and click Extract from the menu. 

Create a Zip Folder

It's easy to create a zip folder that contains multiple files. 

  • Navigate to the folder that contains the files to add to the zip folder. 
  • Select the files. If selecting all files in a folder, press CTRL+A. 
  • From the File Explorer menu, click the three dots. 
  • Click Compress to ZIP file. 
  • Name the zip file.
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  • 00:03 In this lesson, we're going to talk all about zip files and if you've never come
  • 00:08 across a zip file before then hopefully you're going to find this really useful.
  • 00:12 Now, a zip file is an archive file that contains other files.
  • 00:16 And we create a zip file when we have lots of files that we want to
  • 00:20 send to someone because it makes the file size a lot smaller and more manageable.
  • 00:25 Now, I would say that these days, we don't use zip files as much as we used to.
  • 00:29 Because we now have the cloud, it makes it a lot easier to share multiple
  • 00:34 files with other people, even if those files are pretty large.
  • 00:38 We don't necessarily have to email files back and forth these days in order for
  • 00:42 our colleagues to work on them.
  • 00:44 But there might be still occasions where you need to create a zip file or
  • 00:48 you've received a zip file from someone else and
  • 00:51 you need to know how to unzip it and extract those files.
  • 00:54 And that's exactly what we're going to look at in this lesson.
  • 00:57 Now we're going to start out by taking a look at the process of unzipping,
  • 01:01 extracting files from a zip file.
  • 01:03 So in general, a zip file is just a folder that contains lots and
  • 01:08 lots of other files.
  • 01:09 And there might be various different ways that you receive this zip file.
  • 01:13 Maybe it has been emailed to you by a colleague, or
  • 01:17 maybe it's been sent to you on a USB.
  • 01:20 However you've received that zip file,
  • 01:22 you need to make sure that you download it to your PC first.
  • 01:26 So for example, if I click on the Downloads folder,
  • 01:29 you can see in here I have a zip file.
  • 01:32 I know it's a zip file because the icon has a little zip across the folder and
  • 01:36 also we have the file extension .zip.
  • 01:40 If I take a look at the file type, it says compressed zip folder.
  • 01:44 So I can bet that if I was to open this folder, it's either going to
  • 01:49 contain a lot of files, or it's going to have a few very large files.
  • 01:54 And if I double-click to open the folder, I can see that
  • 01:57 we only have two files in here, but one of those is very, very large.
  • 02:02 And this is actually a video file.
  • 02:04 So in order for me to be able to open this file and take a look at it, my colleague
  • 02:08 has decided to add it to a zip file to make the file size a lot smaller.
  • 02:12 Now before I can work on these files, I need to extract them from the zip file.
  • 02:17 It's definitely not recommended to just simply open the file from the zip file and
  • 02:22 start working on them.
  • 02:23 Now, notice, if I select both of these I have an extract all button at the top.
  • 02:29 So it's going to extract all of the items in this zip folder.
  • 02:33 So if I click on Extract All, it's going to ask me for
  • 02:36 a location to extract these files to.
  • 02:39 So I can click on Browse, and I can then go and
  • 02:42 choose where I want to extract them to.
  • 02:44 And for argument's sake here and for
  • 02:46 ease, I'm just going to extract them to my desktop.
  • 02:48 Let's click, Select Folder.
  • 02:50 Once I've done that, all I need to do is click on the Extract button.
  • 02:54 It's going to go away, it's going to unzip those files and
  • 02:57 you can see it's opened up the location where I chose to store them,
  • 03:01 which in this case is the desktop, and I can see those files there.
  • 03:04 Because I've extracted them to my desktop,
  • 03:07 I can also see them actually on my desktop in the background.
  • 03:10 So now I've safely extracted these from the zip folder and I can open them,
  • 03:15 make changes, and work on those files.
  • 03:17 So it's a very simple process to unzip a zip file.
  • 03:21 Now, what about if we want to do the reverse of that?
  • 03:24 Maybe we have lots of files that we want to add to a zip file.
  • 03:28 Let's take a look at that because it's also very simple.
  • 03:32 So if I go across to my Documents folder and
  • 03:35 let's go into our Clients subfolder, and we're going to go into TrainingTech.
  • 03:40 You can see I have nine different files in here.
  • 03:44 Now, in this example, if you take a look at the size, these files don't contain
  • 03:49 anything, but let's just pretend that these are all reasonably large files and
  • 03:54 we want to compress them into a zip file.
  • 03:56 All we would need to do is select all of the files.
  • 03:59 So I'm going to say Ctrl+A to select everything.
  • 04:02 And again, there's a couple of different ways I can do this.
  • 04:05 If I go up to the ribbon or the menu running across the top and
  • 04:09 click the three dots, I can choose Compress to Zip file.
  • 04:12 Alternatively I can right-click, go to Show more options,
  • 04:17 Send to, and then we have compressed zip folder.
  • 04:21 So it is a lot easier just to click the three dots and compress to zip file.
  • 04:26 You can see straight away it creates a new zip file and
  • 04:29 we have the option of renaming these.
  • 04:31 So I'm going to call this Training Files and hit Enter.
  • 04:38 So now if I double-click, I can see all of those files.
  • 04:42 That is pretty much it, we've created our zip folder.
  • 04:45 I can then email this to someone, maybe upload it to the cloud, or
  • 04:49 I could even save it off onto an external device, like a hard drive or a USB stick.

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