How to Use 7 Zip
A Visual Tutorial

Many people have heard of zipping a file or multiple files, but what is it really? There are many reasons one would want to zip a file. The most used method of zipping a file is called deflation.  This squeezes a larger file into a smaller container. This can be extremely helpful when storing a lot of small files or a few large files. Zipping a file comes in handy also when sending files via email. Imagine: You are sending 5 or 6 pictures to a relative. You can only send 7MBs of date in one email on most major email providers. Your pictures take up 12MBs. Instead of sending two separate emails you can just zip those pictures and they will more than likely be able to be sent by that email provider because they have become much smaller.

Seeing how useful this is, it has to be expensive right? Wrong! 7-zip is a program that can fulfill all of your zipping needs, and it's FREE!

(Click on Images to Enlarge)

There are many other programs out there that do the same thing as 7-zip such as WinZip, FreeZip, or jZip. We are just going to use 7-zip as an example for this tutorial.

How to Install 7zip:

1. Navigate to http://www.7-zip.org/.

Click either A or B. If you are unsure whether you have a 64-bit operating system, choose A as it will work with both.



2. Click "Save File."

3. Navigate to where the file is saved and doubleclick to initialize the installation process.

4. Follow the directions on the installer.

How to Zip Files using 7zip

1. Open 7-zip. It should look much like the following image.



2. Navigate to the file/files you want to zip. In this case, we are going to zip a few picture files. Select multiple files by clicking and dragging around them or Ctrl+Clicking on the files you want.



3. When everything you want to zip is highlighted, go to File -> 7-Zip -> Add to Archive.

4. You can name the file whatever you would like here.

5. Make sure to change the compression time from .7z to .Zip.



6. Click Ok.

7. Congratulation! You have created your first Zip file!

To Unzip a File Using 7-Zip

1. Open 7-zip.

2. Navigate to the Zip file.

3. Right click on the file. 7-zip -> Extract File.

4. Choose the destination you want the files to be extracted to and press OK.

5. Congratulations! You have just unzipped a file using 7-Zip!