PC Doctor August 20, 2012

Have your computer questions answered here! Search the PC Doctor archive or submit a question of your own at info@athollibrary.org

Dear PC Doctor,

Can you recommend any user-friendly free software that easily allows you to zip and unzip files? I am particularly interested in attaching multiple photos in emails. As of now, I can only attach about five photos at a time without running over the email file size- limit of 25mb. I am running Windows 7. I have not been successful so far with either WinZip or 7-Zip, but I am probably doing something wrong. I also like to keep the files in a folder on my desktop and download there too. I really do not want to upload the photos to Shutterfly, etc. Would the email recipient necessarily need the same software to unzip any received files or can the zipped files be unzipped simply by clicking on them?

          Thanks Bill

Dear Bill,

Unfortunately, there is not any very user-friendly file compression software out there. I personally use 7-zip but Windows 7 does have an easy to use built-in feature for zipping and unzipping files! First, place the files you want to zip in a new folder. Next, right click the folder you wish to zip up and mouse over “Send to” from the drop down menu. You will see a couple different options including “Compressed (zipped) folder”. If you select that, it will copy your folder and place a zipped version of the folder in the same directory as the copied folder. If your original folder was on your desktop, the zipped folder will also appear on your desktop.

In addition, nope, the recipient will not need any special software to unzip folders. All you need to do is right-click the zipped folder and select “Extract all”.

Good luck!
                  PC Doctor

Until next time… happy computing!