Microsoft introduced support for the ZIP format in Windows in 1998. The ZIP file (and the high-performance compression that came with it) also received widespread support because its public specifications allowed anyone to create apps that worked with this file archiving standard. When you zip a file, you can sometimes reduce its size by a significant amount, which, at the time, was a big deal, saving precious time when transferring files over slow dial-up internet connections. The concept of archiving files by combining them into a single one (which usually takes up less space) was born in the early years of the internet, when PC hard drives were but a fraction of what you get on today’s low-end smartphones and transferring a file was done using dial-up connections, after listening to their oh-so-soothing soundtrack.

How to create a ZIP file with multiple documents in Windows 10 and Windows 11Ī ZIP file is an archive used to compress one or more files and folders to make them more manageable and save storage space.

How to zip a file in Windows 10 and Windows 11.

Create zip command line windows