Making archive files in MacOS

If you are moving a lot of files around, it is convenient to combine them into an archive file. The .zip format is universally accepted on MacOS, Windows, and Linux systems.

See `File restore: Copying files from removable media in MacOS' for documentation on the procedures for restoring or extracting files from an archive.

Archiving an entire folder structure

To build an archive that contains everything in one folder, include all of its sub-folders and sub-sub-folders and so on, follow these steps.

1. In the Finder, navigate to the location containing the folder you want to back up.
2. Click on that folder to select it.
3. Right-click (or control-click) and select Create Archive.

This will create a file whose name is the same as the name of the folder, with ".zip" added to the end.

To move the archive to a different system or to backup media, see `File transfer: moving files to or from the TCC'.

Archiving selected files

To build an archive containing a selected set of files from one folder, follow these steps.

1. In the Finder, select the files you want to archive. Use left-click to select the first one. Then use control-click to select the rest. You can also use shift-click to select all the files between the cursor location and the first selected file.
2. With the cursor on any of the selected files, use right-click (or control-click) and select Create Archive.

The archive will be named Archive.zip and will be located in the same directory as the selected files.

To move the archive to a different system or to backup media, see `File transfer: moving files to or from the TCC'.

John Shipman, tcc-doc@nmt.edu Last updated: 2008/01/25 04:48:24 UT URL: http://www.nmt.edu/tcc/help/xfer/mac-archive.html