Zip Files to Share with Other People

If you're only trying to compress files to make it easier to send them over the internet, you can do the following:

Open File Explorer.
Navigate to the location of the items you want to compress.
Select the files and folders you want to share.
Right-click selection, select Send to, and click on Compressed (zipped) folder.
Type a name for the compressed folder and press Enter.

Once you complete these steps, you can, for example, attach the zipped folder to email to share files with other people. After you sent the email, you can safely delete the zipped folder, because it only contains a copy of your original files.

Alternatively, you can select the items you want to send, and from the Share tab, click the Zip button to compress.

Unzip files on Windows 10

Windows 10 supports zip natively, which means that you can just double-click the zipped folder to access its content — and open files. However, you always want to extract all the compressed files before using them.

If you don't unzip the files, you won't be able to edit and save the new content in the same document, and if you're trying to install a piece of software, the installation process won't start.

There are at least two ways to extract files from a zipped folder:

Use the Extract All Wizard

To extract all the files from a zipped folder, do the following:

Right-click the compressed (zipped) folder.
Select Extract All from the context menu.

By default, the compressed files will extract in the same location as the zipped folder, but you can click the Browse button to select an alternative location.
Check the Show extracted files when complete option.
Click Extract.

Use the File Explorer

To extract all or individual files from a zipped folder, do the following:

Double-click the compressed (zipped) folder.
Select the file or files you want to extract.
Right-click your selection and click Cut.
Navigate to the location you want to unzip the files to.
Right-click and select Paste.