How To Open Or Create Zip Files On Android

Zipping is a process that most people who send and receive a lot of files at work are familiar with. Generally speaking, compressing is quite useful – and mandatory in some cases – when needing to compress a large file.

In Android, you cannot open or create ZIP files without the assistance from a third-party app. In this tutorial, we are going to be showing you how to seamlessly handle ZIP files on Android.

Open and create ZIP files on Andoird: Step-by-step

The app that we will be using is called RAR, which was developed by the folks from WinRar, who provide the famous PC counterpart.

1. Head over to Play Store (or use the button attached below)
2. Look for ‘RAR’
3. Download, install and open it

 

Unzip/open a ZIP file on Android

So you’ve downloaded a ZIP file on your Android device, but when you tap to open it, a message shows up stating that ‘the file cannot be opened’. With RAR, unzipping takes seconds.

1. Open the RAR app
2. Locate the directory that the ZIP file is stored to (‘Download’ most likely)
3. Select it and hit the extract button (shown below)
4. Either select the destination path of your choice or leave the default option and hit ‘Next’

To view the unzipped files, head over to your device’s file manager, where all the saved file are located, and open the respective directory. There, you will find the unzipped file, which will carry the label of the original zipped file.

If you are completely unfamiliar with file manager, feel free to check out our step-by-step guide.

Create a ZIP file on Android

Creating a ZIP file is a pretty simple process as well, and similar to unzipping.

1. Open RAR
2. Select as many files as you wish to include in the new ZIP file (up to 707MB in total)
3. Hit the Archive button, as illustrated in the image below
4. You can customize the Archive name, destination path, and even set up a password
5. Select ZIP
6. You have the option of keeping or erasing the selected files after the ZIP
7. Hit OK

Mission accomplished.

If you encounter any problems while trying out the above or have a recommendation to make, feel free to shoot a comment down below.

Orestes Papanastassiou
Categories: Computers
Tags: Android, Productivity, zip