ZIPping files up is one way to ship them across computers with minimal liability. Also zipping helps in creating a portable file that can easily be transferred while retaining its original quality. For example, I often send zipped images and other documents to friends via WhatsApp because WhatsApp is notorious for reducing images qualities.

One good thing is the fact that I can load WhatsApp on my computer so loading those files up and bundling them to ship over to my friends can be done without ever touching my smartphone but what if you find yourself in a situation whereby the only tool you have with you is your smartphone and you need to send a zipped file to someone.

The majority of smartphones have File explorer or File Manger apps where users can easily check things like their storage usage by different file types and also manage their overall files in one single place but the majority of these applications are limited in what they’re capable of.

However, it might be nice to first talk about what Zip is and the best third-party applications that can be used to get the job done in few clicks whereby your smartphone can take the place of your computer finally.

ZIP in a nutshell

For this post, I’ll use the terms ZIP and COMPRESS interchangeably because they are basically the same thing.

A ZIP is an archive folder that contains numerous files or file types which can be images, videos, documents, HTML, and so on and so forth. With a ZIP, you can combine all of these file types inside one folder and then compress them and easily move them from one place to the other or even from one computer to the other.

If you often download things across the internet such as programs or even software, you’ll notice that majority of the time, they’re often compressed or Zipped using the “.ZIP ” extension.

The technology is so efficient that it helps manage storage space as well as keep your files in one place rather than being scattered across your computer. Another scenario was the one I mentioned above which is maintaining the quality of the files contained within the zip folder such as images.

This is how to Zip Files on iPhone and iPad

Zipping your files on an iPad or an iPhone can be quite easy and wouldn’t necessarily require a third-party application unless you really want to use one. For the native application that comes with both the iPad and iOS, do the following:

1. Launch the Files app.
2. Next is to head to the location that contains the files you want to zip.
3. Then tap the Three-Dot menu located at the upper-right corner.
4. And then click on Select. This will allow you to select a number of files all at once.
5. Tap one or more files to select.
6. Tap the three-dot menu in the bottom-right corner and choose Compress. Files will start compression immediately.

Just like that, you can have your files zipped up on your iPhone or the iPad. Another thing to note is that if you have all the files you want to compress or zip in a particular folder, you can just go ahead and click on the three-dot menu and compress/zip the folder.

However, after compressing a folder, it will usually have the same name as the original folder. For example, Folder-1 becomes Folder-1.ZIP but if you selected multiple files within a folder and then zip them up, it will have the name Archive.zip which will be created within that particular folder (Basically a duplicate of your selected files will be archived within this new “.ZIP” while your files will keep existing outside of the ZIP archive folder) You can then rename the Archive.ZIP folder by tapping and holding the file for a while. Select the Rename option from the pop-up and that’s it.

To open a ZIP file, tap it and choose to open it. This will unzip the file, expanding it to take up the original amount of storage again. Unfortunately, you can’t edit or open ZIP files without unzipping them first. (You can do that if you’re using a Windows 10 PC but that’s another story).

Let’s talk about third-party apps to zip and unzip on iPhone and iPad

Using third-party apps gives you some benefits that make things a bit easier for you and that includes their versatility and so much more. ES File Explorer is one of my Go to app for such. This is a full-fledged file explorer application with the Zip and share functionalities onboard. It also has some other pretty cool features like storage management, Recycles bin, and so forth.

However, there are some zipping apps that only do Zip and compression management such as iZip, WinZip, and Zip & RAR File Extractor. Other services like iCloud, Google Drive, One Drive, and DropBox all come with the Zip feature as well so you can easily transfer a zipped file from the cloud to your local system with minimal effort.

Save Storage Space

As mentioned earlier, Zipped files are basically a compressed duplicate of the original files. If for example, you have Files IMG-1.JPG, IMG-2.PNG, and VIDEO-4.MP4 in a folder and then you decide to zip them up, your device will create these three files inside another folder and archive that folder hence Archive.ZIP. However, these three files will still exist in that same folder which means you now have six files.

In order to save storage space, it’s best to delete the original files which will help retain the storage space instead of having a duplicate file. Unless you plan to move the Zipped archive file to another device or computer entirely (which will then leave you with the original files) you might have no reason to keep duplicates on your computer.

If you’re an Android user, we wrote a comprehensive guide on how to create a zip file on your Android phone in just a few clicks.