When the Mac user sends the zip file to a PC user, however, all of the hidden files are shown. Creating a zip file on a Mac is quick and easy, as MacOS includes a built-in tool called Archive Utility for compressing and unzipping files. On the menu that pops up choose Compress Items. Right-click on the file(s) or folder that you want to zip. Here's how you can make a zip file archive in Mac OS X. Support more than 20 archive formats Supports more than 20 popular archive formats such as rar, zip, 7z, tar, gz, bz2, iso, xz, lzma, apk, lz4. Support macOS 10.10 or higher Apple operating systems. Right-click (or Control-click) on the file or folder you want to compress. Click the Finder icon in your Mac's Dock to make sure it's the active application. In the Finder drop down window, choose folders, files or both. Click Add and choose the location of your files form the drop down (from your Mac, iCloud Drive or cloud services). You will see an empty Untitled.zip file in the WinZip window.

ZipFiles4PC also has an option to preserve the resrouce forks without creating the _MACOSX folder.Ĭreating Zip Files on Mac. For certain files (like some font files), these resource forks are necessary to be left intact.

The built in zip utility on the Mac sequesters all of the resource forks into this _MACOSX folder when creating a zip archive.

Many files on the Mac have two parts: a data fork, and a resource fork. If the Mac user sends the zip file to another Mac user, the folder will not appear - this is a hidden folder. The _MACOSX folder is created when a Mac user creates and archive (also called a zip file) using the Mac.

Macos zip folder