Archiving files and folders creates a copy of the items in a compressed file. Archived files take up less disk space than uncompressed files, so archiving is useful for making backup copies of your data or sending information over the Internet.

If you archive a single item, the archived file has the name of the original item with a ".zip" extension. If you archive multiple items at once, the archived file is called Archive.zip.

When you open an archived file, the archive is replaced by a folder that contains uncompressed copies of the original items.

See also