Ive actually wanted to ask this question for a long time, when zipping a file on mac i see absolutely no difference in file size as opposed to doing the same on a PC, am I missing something? Must be settings somewhere?
Thanks
MacBook Pro (15-inch Early 2011), OS X Yosemite (10.10.3)
The zip from the contextual menu has no regular configurable settings. Like a one-size-fits-all that anyone can use. You may want more, though.
The zip format allows for some different compressions methods, that may have different results for various kinds of files. It should not make difference in unzipping compatibility. You will have to use a more versatile compressor application, though.
You mention rar, which could well be a better scheme (smaller output files) than zip for the kind of files that you are working with. There are command line tools and GUI application to help you with that.
There are other compression schemes to consider: 7z, zipx, or even FLAC (playable lossless compressed audio), similar to Apple Lossless audio codec.
Have a look at these tools. (Some* are a bit old.)
Winrar for Mac command line, Winzip for Mac by Corel, iZip, SimplyRAR*, Rarify*, Zipx, Keka.
The zip from the contextual menu has no regular configurable settings. Like a one-size-fits-all that anyone can use. You may want more, though.
The zip format allows for some different compressions methods, that may have different results for various kinds of files. It should not make difference in unzipping compatibility. You will have to use a more versatile compressor application, though.
You mention rar, which could well be a better scheme (smaller output files) than zip for the kind of files that you are working with. There are command line tools and GUI application to help you with that.
There are other compression schemes to consider: 7z, zipx, or even FLAC (playable lossless compressed audio), similar to Apple Lossless audio codec.
Have a look at these tools. (Some* are a bit old.)
Winrar for Mac command line, Winzip for Mac by Corel, iZip, SimplyRAR*, Rarify*, Zipx, Keka.
The ZIP format is limited in what it can do with certain file types. Unless Windows gives you some control over the ZIP settings, files that won't compress on the Mac won't in Windows, either.
The makers of Stuffit have found a way to compress even highly compressed JPEGs, MP3s, MPEG video and such. The more compressed (ruined) they already are depends on how much space you'll save. At one time I tested 50 JPEG images saved at level 12 (best quality). Zipped, they were simply stored (no space saved). Stuffit reduced the total used space by 60%.
That's what you're seeing with WinRAR. It's a completely different type of compression scheme/algorithm that does a good job compressing some file types that ZIP does nothing with.
It totally depends on the file you are trying to compress. For example you are unlikely to get any significant reductions with files like jpeg or in most cases pdf, that are already encoded with space saving in mind.
No one can see how Apple is performing the Finder-based compression from the secondary menu, and what zip options are in play versus WIndows, NTFS, and the zip options chosen there. Additionally, file sizes reported on Window's NTFS are likely different than the same file size reporting on HFS+, or APFS on macOS.
If you want more control over zip options then you will need to explore the zip man page in the Terminal. Particularly, the compression method and speed will regulate whether no compression, or full compression occurs. There is also GNU zip (gzip).
$ man zip
# or... generate a PDF of the man page
$ man -t zip | open -f -a Preview
On an audio file, I suppose it will depend on the audio format - you may expect to gain space for an uncompressed AIFF file, for example, but not for an MP3 file.
That is consistent with what I got on my mac in a few experiments: for an MP3 file, the reduction is insignificant; for an AIFF file I got about a 20% reduction; and for a 32-bit WAV file (which was the least compressed of all), the reduction was about 50%.
Again, it all depends on what file you start with.
What audio formats are you using?
Mostly audio folded from audio recording projects. on a PC using winrar I save hundreds of mb to sometimes gb on certain projects but zip on mac never ever gains anything for me. Not even re-zipping unzipped stuff?
Yes I understand. My formats are always 24 or 32 but Wave files.. the same files on PC I’m seeing good compression. But it’s iust not working on mac.. for everything , I get back the same file size. I must be doing something wrong?
Why zip files dont compress?
