How do I create a ZIP file/folder on Mac?

In the finder menu bar under the "file" menu, choose "compress". Your file will appear zipped in the same directory.

Using Spotlight, type in Terminal.

Change your directory to the location of your folder. For example, in my instance, I would type cd /Volumes/dataMAC and hit enter.

Type in ls to make sure you see your folder.

Now type in the command that will simultaneously compress and password protect the files in the form of zip -er FILENAME.zip FILESorFOLDERStoCOMPRESS.

In my example, that would be zip -er Mytaxes.zip ForTaxes/.

Hit return/enter.

Next, you'll be prompted with a password prompt—type in the password you want to use to protect the files. Enter the password twice.

You should now see your compressed and password-protected zip file in Finder.

You can test the protection by double-clicking the file.

Enter your password. The file will be uncompressed into the same directory

Nice try but is the zip file all password protected?

The default Terminal app can do this for free. To create a ZIP file or compress a folder on a Mac, you can follow these steps:

1. Open Terminal on your Mac. You can find it by going to Applications > Utilities > Terminal.

2. Navigate to the directory where the folder or file you want to compress is located. You can use the "cd" command followed by the directory path. For example, to navigate to the Desktop, you can use the following command:

cd Desktop

3. To create a ZIP file of a single file, you can use the following command:

zip abc.zip [folder_to_compress]

4. Press Enter to run the command. Terminal will compress the file or folder into a ZIP file in the same directory.

5. Once the compression process is complete, you will find the ZIP file in the same directory.

That's it! You have successfully created a ZIP file or compressed a folder on your Mac using Terminal.