Zip a folder, or many files at once

The quickest way: right-click

In File Explorer, right-click a folder or a file, choose Octoolo, then Compress to ZIP. The ZIP appears beside it straight away, named after it (Photos becomes Photos.zip), at Normal compression and without a password, with no questions asked. Select several files and folders first and they all go into one ZIP named after the folder they are in.

Want 7Z, a password or another name? Choose Compress… instead: the Compress view opens with them, in a small Files window of its own. On Windows 11 both are under Show more options (or Shift+F10).

How much smaller it gets

It depends on what you pack. Text, spreadsheets, Word documents saved as plain files, logs and code often shrink to a quarter or less. Photos, videos, music and PDFs are already compressed, so zipping them saves little: their real gain is having one file to send instead of hundreds.

Octoolo knows the usual compressed types (JPG, PNG, MP4, MP3, PDF, Office files and other archives among them) and stores them in the ZIP as they are, instead of spending time trying to compress them again. Everything else is compressed with Deflate, the method every ZIP tool reads: level 1 for Fast, 6 for Normal and 9 for Smallest.

What goes into the ZIP

• Folders keep their structure, empty ones included, and every file keeps its date.
• Names in any language are stored as UTF-8 and marked so, which Windows, macOS and Linux all read.
• Big files over 4 GB go in too (as ZIP64, which current tools read).
• Shortcuts that are links (symbolic links and junctions) inside a folder are left out, so packing a folder never wanders into another part of the disk.

Two items with the same name, from different places, both go in: the second becomes “notes (2).txt”. The originals are only read, never changed or moved. Nothing is written over either: if Photos.zip is already there, the new one is Photos (2).zip.

ZIP or 7Z?

Pick ZIP when someone else will open the file: Windows and macOS open ZIPs by themselves. Pick 7Z when size matters more, for backups or big downloads you control: 7Z's LZMA2 compression usually makes smaller files than ZIP, and a 7Z password hides the file names too. See make a 7Z file.

RAR is the one format Octoolo cannot make: creating RAR files is reserved to WinRAR. It opens them, though: see open RAR files.