When you want to send someone a lot of files in an email, the best way to do it is to compress them into one file first, called an archive or a zip file. When the person receives the zip file they just need to double click it and, hey presto, the exact files that you put into it appear in a folder! Read on to find out how to do it.
Not only does this save space, it can also stop the files getting messed up on the email journey they are about to embark upon. If you compress a folder, the folder and all the files appear when it is ‘unzipped’. This is built into Macintosh OSX. Here is how to do it.
1. Here is the folder we want to zip.
2. Right Click on the folder, and a menu will appear, select Compress (if you have Leopard) or Create Archive (if you have Tiger or older) .
3. It will make a zip file that you can then drag into apple mail or onto a thumbdrive to give to someone else. All you have to do is double click on the zip file it and it will ‘uncompress’ and you will have the original file or folder appear!
Yes, I’ve tried this, but it doesn’t really reduce the size of the folder. I had 23mb of photos, then I zipped it, and now have a 23mb zip file.
Any ideas on how to further compress files or folders, so I can actually email them out without gmail yelling at me?
If the files are already compressed, which jpg photo files are for example, as are mp3 files, then zip can’t really compress them any more! So this really just works for documents and applications. If you wan’t to make the photos smaller you’ll have to do it from iphoto. Click on share, and then email.
Hey,
Just wanted to say thanks. Your tip worked. You’re a life saver.
DH
Thank you. This helped me finally stop sending GIANT pictures to my friends. I never could figure out how to make the pictures smaller. Thank you so much.
thats fine , but what to do when having the same problem with a mp3 file which i want to send via email…??
i have some which are each between 3 -6 mb and i would like to email them in a smaller size… does stuffit help there , and if so , how ?
No you can’t compress an mp3 any smaller really as it’s already compressed. (Same for jpegs and other compressed files.)
hey ,
my problem is that i once had to compress 96 pics and make it to a zip file for yousendit.com but the file was , in the end , was still way too big. and i remember that somebody explained a trick to me but i’ve forgotten about it again….. anybody any ideas?
help is much appreciated!
julie
Thank you WAYNE!!! you helped me!!!
i have 786 mb of jpg format photo.i want to send this photos to another mail id…so i put that folder in zip file n try to send but it didn’n gone..so i want to send.can you send me the idea …about how to send
To email you need to break it up into small batches, keep each individual zip file under 10MB.
Better off getting dropbox or some similar thing and uploading them.
ok, well, under 10MB. is each pictures 1MB each, mening I can only send 10 pics or what?
Yes that’s correct. See the post on using iDisk for how to send larger files.
http://macintoshhowto.com/internet/how-to-share-a-file-using-idisk.html
Hi, We do this all the time. But several times we get a response from the person we’ve sent the folder to that they can’t “open” the zip document. Can some (I’m assuming) PC’s NOT unzip? Or do these people just not know where the file is being downloaded to? If you’re not trying to compress the files any more can you, say, put 5 pdf files in a folder and just attach the folder – and then the problem goes away?
Thanks
Larry
Hi, I have the opposite problem. When I send a picture eg: file size of 3.3Mb, either to myself or to anywhere else, the recipient size is only 36.6 KB. How do I send a file that retains its size? Using Mac OS X version 10.6.8, Mail version 4.5.