ZIP Creator

Bundle several files into a single ZIP archive, compressed in this browser tab.

Runs on your deviceMoreWorkingNo account needed

What this tool does

ZIP Creator reads every file you add, compresses each one at the level you choose and writes them into a single archive. Deflate does the compressing, and it is the one method every ZIP reader understands, so the result opens in Windows Explorer, macOS Archive Utility, unzip, 7-Zip or anything else that handles a .zip, with no special tool at the other end. At Store nothing is deflated at all: the entry is written with the bytes as they came in. The summary afterwards reports how many files went in, the size of the archive, and how much smaller it is than the originals.

Entry names are cleaned before they are written. Drive letters and leading slashes go, a ".." segment cancels the segment in front of it rather than climbing above the archive root, and control characters are removed from every name segment — so an archive built here cannot drop a file outside the directory someone extracts it into. Two files sharing a name are not silently collapsed either: the second becomes notes (2).txt, so both survive. The folder option nests every entry inside one directory named after the archive, which stops extraction from scattering loose files across whatever folder the recipient happened to be in.

All of this happens in your browser, and that shapes the limits worth knowing. The compression library is a script this site serves, and it is fetched when you build your first archive rather than with the page, so that one request needs a connection even though nothing of yours goes with it. Every file is then held in memory while the archive is assembled, so the ceiling is the tab's memory rather than a published number. There is no password or encryption setting, so the archive is readable by anyone who receives it. And each entry is stamped with the moment the archive was built, not the file's own modified date, because that date is not carried through.

How to use it

  1. Add the files. Choose them or drop them on the page. Any file type is accepted, and everything you add goes into one archive rather than being handled as separate jobs.
  2. Name the archive. Type a stem such as invoices-2026. The ".zip" is appended for you, and typing it yourself does not double it. Any leading path or control character in what you typed is dropped first.
  3. Pick a compression level. Store, Fast, Balanced or Smallest. Balanced is the default; Store copies the bytes straight through, which is the sensible choice when the inputs are already compressed.
  4. Decide whether to nest. Tick the folder option to put every entry inside a single directory named after the archive, so extracting it does not scatter files into the recipient's current folder.
  5. Build it and read the summary. The result line gives the archive size and the percentage saved against the total input, which tells you at a glance whether a higher level would have been worth the wait.

Processing & privacy

Runs on your device. Your file is processed directly in this browser.

Common use cases

Sending a batch by email

Most mail clients cope better with one attachment than with fifteen, and a single archive keeps the set together instead of arriving in pieces.

Handing over a finished job

Source files, fonts and a written brief go across as one item, so the recipient gets the whole set at once rather than chasing whichever piece was forgotten.

Shrinking a pile of text

Logs, CSV exports and SQL dumps are highly repetitive and compress hard. Smallest on a set of exports routinely cuts them to a fraction of their original size.

Archive files you have finished with

A project's worth of completed work becomes one file you can move to an external drive, which makes clearing the originals off your machine a single decision.

Questions

Do the files leave my machine?
No. The archive is assembled in this browser tab: files are read from your disk, compressed in memory and handed back as a download. The only thing that crosses the network is the compression library itself, requested from this site on your first build, and that request carries none of your data.
Can I put a password on the archive?
No. There is no encryption setting here, so the archive can be opened by anyone who receives it. If the contents are sensitive, encrypt them before they go in — Protect PDF puts a password on a document, and Text Encryption covers notes and plain text.
Can I zip a whole folder?
Not by pointing at the folder itself. The file chooser and the drop zone hand over a flat list of files, so a nested tree is not walked or rebuilt. Select the files inside the folder, and use the folder option if you want them nested one level down in the archive.
Why did my archive barely get smaller?
JPEG, PNG, MP4, MP3 and PDF files are already compressed, so Deflate has very little left to remove. Smallest on a folder of photos takes noticeably longer and may save a percent or two; Store is usually the better choice for those.
What happens if two files have the same name?
The second one is renamed rather than overwritten. Two files called notes.txt become notes.txt and notes (2).txt inside the archive, so neither is lost even when they came from different folders.
How large a set can I compress?
Everything is held in memory while the archive is built, so the limit is your device rather than a fixed figure. A few hundred megabytes is routine; a multi-gigabyte set is likely to run the tab out of memory partway through.
Do the original file dates survive?
No. Each entry carries the time the archive was created, because the file's own modified date is not passed through to the archive. If those dates matter, note them somewhere before you compress.

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