How To Zip And Unzip Files On A Chromebook

How to Zip and Unzip Files in Chrome OS on a Chromebook

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Chromebooks and Chrome OS are becoming more and more popular these days, with the increasing functionality of web apps, lots of people are finding they are able to ditch their old Mac or Windows machines and use a Chromebook as their full-time computer.

But what do you do if you need to unzip or zip a zip file on your Chromebook? Well, as it turns out, it’s actually very easy to zip and unzip zip files on a Chromebook, the process is slightly different to how you might do it on a Windows or Mac computer. But it’s very easy to do and you don’t even need to download any extra apps or extensions.

Prefer to watch a video tutorial on how to unzip and zip files on a Chromebook? Click here.

How To Unzip Files On Chromebook

In a digital world, it is inevitable that at some point you will need to unzip a zip file, perhaps you downloaded multiple files from somewhere like Google photos, or perhaps someone has sent you a zip folder of files.  But no matter why you need to open a zip folder, this is how it’s done.

You’ll first of all need to locate your zip file in the Chrome OS files app, so open your files app and navigate to wherever it’s saved.

how do i unzip a file on chromebook

You’ll then need to double click on the zip file and it will open up and appear down the bottom of the files app as though it’s a USB stick you’ve plugged into your Chromebook.

how do you unzip a file on a chromebook

Now that you can see the files, if you want to extract them from the zip file, click on the top file, hold down the shift key on your keyboard, and then click on the bottom file so that all the files in the zip file are selected.

how do you unzip a file on chromebook

Now that you’ve selected the files, you’ll need to click and drag them into the folder you want to put them in, it doesn’t matter where you drag them to. Just as long as it’s out of the zip file.

how to extract a zip file on chromebook

Now that you’ve dragged the files out of the zip file, they’re no longer in the zip file and you can do whatever you want with them.  You can now click on the “eject” button next to the name of your zip file in the bottom left-hand corner because you no longer need it there.

how to extract zip files on chromebook

 

How To Zip A File On Chromebook

Now that you know how to unzip a zip file on a Chromebook, you might also want to know how to create a zip file on a Chromebook.  This can be very useful if you have a lot of files you want to send to someone.

The first thing you need to do is make sure all the files you want to zip are in the same location on your Chromebook, this can be in Google Drive, in your downloads folder, or anywhere else you can access from the Chrome OS files app as long as all the files are in the same spot.

(If you have lots of files from different places on your Chromebook, consider creating a folder called “files to zip” and moving all the files you want to zip into there before you start.)

how to create a zip file on chromebook

Once you’ve collected all the files you want to zip, you’ll need to select them all.  If you’ve only got a few files you want to zip, you can do so by clicking on the preview image of each file so that it shows a checkbox.

Or if you want to select a whole lot of files, you can do so by clicking on the top file, holding down the shift key, and clicking on the bottom file to select them all at once.

how to make a zip file on chromebook

Once the files are selected, right-click on one of the selected files (or tap two fingers on the track-pad if using a track-pad) and click “Zip selection” on the menu that appears.

how to zip a file on chromebook

Once you’ve clicked zip selection, a notification will appear in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen showing you the progress of zipping the files, it may take a while if you have lots of large files or if your Chromebook is a bit slow.

how to zip files on chromebook

When the notification disappears, that means it has finished zipping the file, you should now see a file in the files app called “Archive.zip“.  If you want to rename the zip file, right-click on it and choose “Rename“, then type the new name you want to give it and press enter.

how to open a zip file on a chromebook

how to open a zip file on chromebook

You have now successfully zipped your files and you are ready to send it to people or do whatever you wanted to do with it.

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2 thoughts on “How To Zip And Unzip Files On A Chromebook”

    1. Hi Goa, I’m sorry to hear it’s not working for you, but even a School Chromebook should be able to do this, cloud you be more specific as to where it’s going wrong?

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