When you want to send someone a lot of files in an email, the best way to do it is to compress them into one file first, called an archive or a zip file. When the person receives the zip file they just need to double click it and, hey presto, the exact files that you put into it appear in a folder! Read on to find out how to do it.

Not only does this save space, it can also stop the files getting messed up on the email journey they are about to embark upon. If you compress a folder, the folder and all the files appear when it is ‘unzipped’. This is built into Macintosh OSX. Here is how to do it.

1. Here is the folder we want to zip.

2. Right Click on the folder, and a menu will appear, select Compress (if you have Leopard) or Create Archive (if you have Tiger or older) .

3. It will make a zip file that you can then drag into apple mail or onto a thumbdrive to give to someone else. All you have to do is double click on the zip file it and it will ‘uncompress’ and you will have the original file or folder appear!

Now one thing to be aware if is that there is a limit on most email providers that your email does not go above 10MB. So if you have files that exceed 10 MB, you’ll need to share them via dropbox or idisk.