File Archiver

Pack files into a ZIP or open an existing ZIP entirely in your browser — nothing is uploaded.

Who this is for

Anyone who needs to send a folder rather than a file: a batch of photos going to one recipient, a set of documents an email client would otherwise attach one by one, or a collection of files heading into a form that only accepts a single upload. It also opens ZIPs, which is useful on a locked-down work machine or a phone where nothing is installed to read them.

How to create a ZIP

1. Add files or a whole folder.
2. Pick a compression level (0 = fastest / no shrink, 9 = slowest / smallest).
3. Click Create ZIP and download the archive.

How to extract

1. Drop a .zip on Open / Extract.
2. Download individual files or extract all.

Store or Deflate

The compression level decides how hard the tool works to make the archive smaller. Store packages the files without compressing them at all — fast, and the right choice when the contents are already compressed, because JPEGs, MP4s, MP3s and PDFs have had their redundancy squeezed out already and will not shrink further. Zipping a folder of photos at maximum effort mostly burns time for a saving of a percent or two.

Deflate is worth it for text: documents, spreadsheets, CSV exports, source code and logs often compress to a fraction of their original size because they repeat themselves so much. If your folder is mixed, Deflate is still the safer default — it costs a little time on the files that will not shrink, and saves a lot on the ones that will.

Common mistakes

Expecting a ZIP to be a password-protected container. A ZIP bundles files together; it is not encryption, and anyone who receives it can open it. If the contents are sensitive, encrypt them before zipping or use a transfer method that protects them properly. Zipping already-compressed files at maximum effort is the second mistake, and it is why a folder of videos takes a long time to produce an archive barely smaller than the originals. The third is closing the tab while the progress bar is still running — the archive is being built in your browser, so leaving mid-way loses the work.

Tips

Give the archive a name that means something to the person receiving it rather than leaving the default; "archive.zip" in a downloads folder is a small unkindness. Add a folder rather than selecting its files individually when you want the structure preserved — the folder paths are kept inside the archive. Watch the running totals as files are added: if the compressed figure is barely below the raw figure, your files are already compressed and Store will finish much faster for the same result. Build large archives on a computer rather than a phone, since everything happens in the device's memory.

Accessibility notes

Files can be added with the buttons rather than by dragging, so no pointer precision is required, and every control is a standard button or select reachable by keyboard. Progress is reported as text — file counts, sizes and a percentage — alongside the bar, so the state of a long job does not depend on seeing the bar move. The file list is a plain list with names and sizes as text.

Privacy

Files never leave your device for this tool. Processing stays in the tab.

Related tools on ToolsAre.Us

Compressing images before zipping saves far more than the ZIP will, so the Image Compressor is usually the step before this one. The PDF tools merge documents into one file, which is often a tidier answer than an archive when everything is a document. For photos of paper, start with the Doc Scanner. The full tool list is on the home page.

FAQ