"compress file"in leopard? the zip file is just as big!

Question

"compress file"in leopard? the zip file is just as big!

I saw the podcast of apple on compressing file "to make them smaller for email and stuff", well in my experience, any file I try to compress on my mac becomes a zip file that is always just as big as the original, usually minus 1 little MB. Is that what's supposed to happen? I've got a 124MB file, i try to compress it and I now have a beautiful 123MB zipped file to "easily" send over email? I don't think so... Can anyone explain what I'm missing here? thanks!

iMac (mid 2007), Mac OS X (10.5.1), 20" 2.4 Ghz 1GB RAM

Posted on Dec 11, 2007 8:48 AM

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Answer 1

Kurt Lang

Level 9

69,564 points

Dec 11, 2007 9:45 AM in response to Philippe Mion

It depends on what you're trying to compress. Neither .zip or Stuffit's .sit or .sitx formats will do much of anything to a video file. RAR will compress video to roughly half its size, but there aren't very many utilities for the Mac that will create a .rar archive.

Just so you know, it's not a problem with the Mac creating the .zip file. It wouldn't work any better in Windows. Zip just isn't good at compressing video. Especially when the video file itself, like yours, is already a compressed format.

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Answer 2

Dec 11, 2007 2:15 PM in response to Philippe Mion

Most ISPs have a limit of 5GB to 10GB for email attahments. So even if you could compress the file, it will never go that small. There are some on-line services where you could upload the file and someone else (that has your ID & password) can download. Or you could burn the file to a CD/DVD and send it via snail mail. Or transfer it by using a USB flash drive.

 Cheers, Tom 😉

BTW You posted in the Panther 10.3 & below forum. You are more likely to get better answers if you post in the Leopard 10.5 forum @ http://discussions.apple.com/category.jspa?categoryID=235

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Answer 3

Dec 11, 2007 2:36 PM in response to Texas Mac Man

Right, I get it, thanks a lot for your swift answers and thanks for the tip on where to post.

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