If you need to email fifty high-resolution photographs to a client, you cannot attach them to the email one by one. Not only is it incredibly tedious, but the combined file size will likely exceed the 25MB attachment limit enforced by Gmail and Outlook, causing the email to bounce back.
You must “zip” the files. Zipping takes dozens of loose files, bundles them into a single, neat folder (an archive), and runs them through a mathematical compression algorithm to drastically shrink the overall file size. Windows 11 has a powerful ZIP tool built directly into the operating system, meaning you do not need to download sketchy third-party software like WinRAR or 7-Zip for basic tasks.
How to Zip Multiple Files (or an Entire Folder)
The easiest way to zip files is to put them all into a single folder first.
- Open File Explorer and navigate to the files you want to compress.
- Select the files. You can hold down the Ctrl key on your keyboard while clicking individual files, or you can press Ctrl + A to select every single file in the folder.
- Right-click on any one of the highlighted files.
- A modern Windows 11 menu will appear. Click on Compress to ZIP file.
- Note: If you are using an older version of Windows 11 or Windows 10, you might need to click “Send to” first, and then select “Compressed (zipped) folder”.
Windows will instantly create a brand new file in that exact same location. The file will have a zipper icon on the folder, indicating it is an archive. The text of the name will be highlighted in blue, allowing you to immediately type a new name for the file (e.g., Vacation_Photos.zip) and press Enter.
You can now drag and drop this single .zip file into an email attachment box.
How to Unzip (Extract) a File
When someone emails you a ZIP file, you cannot simply double-click the files inside it to edit them. Windows will let you peek inside the ZIP folder to look at the file names, but if you try to open a Word document or a video while it is still compressed, it will often crash or throw an error.
You must “extract” the files to decompress them before using them.
- Locate the
.zipfile in File Explorer (usually in your Downloads folder). - Right-click the zipped file.
- Click on Extract All…
- A dialogue box will appear asking you where you want to put the uncompressed files. By default, it will create a new, normal folder in the exact same location. Simply click the Extract button at the bottom of the window.
A progress bar will appear. Once finished, a new window will pop open showing you the normal, uncompressed files, ready to be edited or viewed.
Troubleshooting: The “File is Too Large” Error
The standard Windows ZIP utility is fantastic, but it is not magic. It works best on text documents, spreadsheets, and raw bitmaps. It does not work well on files that are already heavily compressed, like MP4 videos or JPG photos.
If you zip a folder containing 5 Gigabytes of MP4 videos, the resulting ZIP file will likely still be 4.9 Gigabytes. The ZIP algorithm cannot squeeze data that has already been mathematically crushed by the video format.
If your ZIP file is still too large to email, you cannot zip it again. You must upload the massive ZIP file to a cloud storage service like Google Drive, Dropbox, or Microsoft OneDrive, and email the recipient a shareable link instead of a physical attachment.