Mac horrible at compressing/zipping files

Question

Level 1

53 points

Mac horrible at compressing/zipping files

Is it me or is Mac still in the early 90s when it comes to zipping up files? I can do a basic compress by highlighting several files in the same directory, right-clicking, and selecting 'compress'. Ok, that's what I'd expect. But let's say I want to add a file to that existing zip file? I can't just drag n drop a new file on top of the zip file and have it added (something that has worked in ugh, Windows, for about 10 years). I even use Pathfinder which doesn't add the feature, either. Is there some OS snap-in that will get my otherwise state-of-the-art OS into the 2000s?

MacBook 13" (unibody), Mac OS X (10.6.1), iPhone 3GS

Posted on Mar 8, 2010 7:14 AM

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Answer 1

Falcon01

Level 2

440 points

Mar 8, 2010 8:01 AM in response to bediddleby

The only thing I can suggest is select the current Zip file and the file you want to add and with both selected you can right click and compress again - this will create a single file.

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Answer 2

bediddleby Author

Level 1

53 points

Mar 8, 2010 10:03 AM in response to Falcon01

Falcon01 wrote:
The only thing I can suggest is select the current Zip file and the file you want to add and with both selected you can right click and compress again - this will create a single file.

Thanks for the reply.

Then you end up with a ZIP within a ZIP, plus an extra unneeded ZIP (the original). I guess that's a workaround, albeit a very ugly one.

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Answer 3

KJK555

Level 4

2,900 points

Mar 8, 2010 4:03 PM in response to bediddleby

You can add/subtract zip files using the command line.

Zip stores files in zip archives. The default action is to add or replace
zipfile entries.

Basic command line:
zip options archive_name file file ...

Some examples:
Add file.txt to z.zip (create z if needed):
zip z file.txt

Zip all files in current dir:
zip z *

Zip files in current dir and subdirs also:
zip -r z .

If you must have a GUI program then a third party program is required.
This one costs money, but it is very nice:
http://my.smithmicro.com/mac/stuffit/index.html

Here is my choice:
http://www.zipcreator.com/
#this is a free (as in free beer) java based utility#
#not very fancy, but it works#

There are others such as yemu zip and keka, but they don't do the adding to archive function.


Kj ♘

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Answer 4

ctmurray

Level 1

88 points

Mar 8, 2010 4:58 PM in response to KJK555

http://www.yellowmug.com/yemuzip/

Another one I found that is free. Not sure it will allow you to add files any old time. But its free and so you can try it out and let us know.

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Answer 5

bediddleby Author

Level 1

53 points

Mar 9, 2010 5:14 AM in response to KJK555

KJK555 wrote:
You can add/subtract zip files using the command line.

If you must have a GUI program then a third party program is required.

Thanks. Yes, I'm familiar with several of the GUI tools and have used command line. This just confirms my original thought: it's not something I'm missing, it's an inexplicable shortcoming of Mac. This is an intuitive gesture - dragging a file onto a ZIP file - yet the normally intuitive Apple is 10 years behind Redmond WA.

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Answer 6

bediddleby Author

Level 1

53 points

Mar 9, 2010 5:21 AM in response to ctmurray

ctmurray wrote:
http://www.yellowmug.com/yemuzip/

Another one I found that is free. Not sure it will allow you to add files any old time. But its free and so you can try it out and let us know.

Thanks for the reply. No, Yemu creates a single ZIP from a single drag-n-drop; that's it. There's not even a way to drag files from multiple directories without first dragging them all to a single location before using Yemu to zip.

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Answer 7

Mar 9, 2010 5:23 AM in response to bediddleby

it's an inexplicable shortcoming of Mac. This is an intuitive gesture - dragging a file onto a ZIP file - yet the normally intuitive Apple is 10 years behind Redmond WA.

Maybe it's Zipping files that's becoming out of date. Disk drives are much larger than they were 10 years ago. Most large files are media files, such as audio, pictures, or video. Those are already compressed, so using ZIP won't make them much smaller. Files that can be compressed, such as text files, use such a small portion of modern, large, drives, that there is usually no point in bothering with compression.

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Answer 8

thomas_r.

Level 7

31,989 points

Mar 9, 2010 5:26 AM in response to bediddleby

You can suggest this to Apple using the [Apple feedback page|http://www.apple.com/feedback>. Further complaining about Apple being "behind" is not likely to be well-received here (to me, it seems like a trivial feature that could actually cause inexperienced users a lot of confusion) and is against the [terms of use of these forums|http://discussions.apple.com/help.jspa#terms].

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Answer 9

bediddleby Author

Level 1

53 points

Mar 9, 2010 5:30 AM in response to Malcolm Rayfield

Malcolm Rayfield wrote:
Maybe it's Zipping files that's becoming out of date. Disk drives are much larger than they were 10 years ago. Most large files are media files, such as audio, pictures, or video. Those are already compressed, so using ZIP won't make them much smaller. Files that can be compressed, such as text files, use such a small portion of modern, large, drives, that there is usually no point in bothering with compression.

I know we're getting into a different forum here, but I gotta disagree. I don't zip files for local storage, I zip them to collect and send them to others, often via email, but sometimes via ftp. It's an everyday thing in my job. Many corporate email systems refuse .doc, .xls, .exe attachments for virus issues, to name a few, but will allow ZIP. And even if compression isn't absolutely necessary, the consolidation of multiple files into a single standard file type is.

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Answer 10

bediddleby Author

Level 1

53 points

Mar 9, 2010 5:34 AM in response to thomas_r.

Thomas A Reed wrote:
You can suggest this to Apple using the [Apple feedback page| http://www.apple.com/feedback >. Further complaining about Apple being "behind" is not likely to be well-received here (to me, it seems like a trivial feature that could actually cause inexperienced users a lot of confusion) and is against the [terms of use of these forums| http://discussions.apple.com/help.jspa#terms ].

Understood, but the original point was to find out if this "trivial"-to-you feature was available and I just didn't know how. That's been determined so I've moved on. Thanks to all.

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Answer 11

Kurt Lang

Level 9

57,984 points

Mar 9, 2010 6:11 AM in response to bediddleby

Stuffit Standard and Stuffit Deluxe will allow you to create .zip files and other compression types, not just its own .sit and .sitx. With any of the compression schemes it supports, you can also add to your archives, or remove items from them.

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Answer 12

KJK555

Level 4

2,900 points

Mar 9, 2010 12:24 PM in response to bediddleby

Even from a geek's point of view, the command line is okay for zipping a large number of files
at once, but for everyday use it is cumbersome and Apple's (Finder) interface is simple to the point
of being crude by today's standards.

ZipCreator is a good program to help fill the gap.
http://www.zipcreator.com/

Smith Micro's Stuffit is the cat's Meow, I have it and I love it, but it is not a cheap solution and
for the casual user, it is the equivalent of using a sledge hammer to smash a cockroach.

Kj ♘

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Answer 13

Kurt Lang

Level 9

57,984 points

Mar 9, 2010 12:32 PM in response to KJK555

Thanks for the link, KJK555. I was looking for that one, but couldn't remember the name.

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Answer 14

Mar 10, 2010 3:17 AM in response to KJK555

Stuffit the "cat's meow?" More like the cat's coughed up furball from my experiences with this product.

I have been using Stuffit now and then over the decades but in recent years the same bugs continue unabated through all its newest iterations:

1) It see's any Mac OS compressed ZIP files as damaged and won't work with them at all.
2) Trying to compress multiple individual files simultaneously (i.e. each file in a separate ZIP container) eventually crashes Stuffit. I have to wait and manually compress each file one by one. Though with Snow Leopard, I can compress 3-4 files simultaneously but due to a bug trying to do more would lead to ZIP files double and even triple the size of the original file.
3) Much slower ZIPping files than OS X.

The only decent product that I use is Expander (available free) for being able to UN-compress a wide range of formats.

I used to religiously swear by Stuffit in the pre-OS X and even early OS X days, but when they got greedy and started releasing "new" versions every year and bloated the product, the bugs began in earnest and haven't been resolved. Now I only swear at it. Pity.

YMMV...

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Answer 15

Dogcow-Moof

Level 8

36,185 points

Mar 10, 2010 4:22 AM in response to KJK555

KJK555 wrote:
Even from a geek's point of view, the command line is okay for zipping a large number of files
at once, but for everyday use it is cumbersome and Apple's (Finder) interface is simple to the point
of being crude by today's standards.

I disagree wholeheartedly.

I've never run across a archive/compression task that tar -zcf or tar -jcf didn't handle well, but those certainly aren't good choices for GUI aficionados…

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