When zip file is too large?
Unfortunately, there isn’t a simple method to make a ZIP file smaller. Once you squeeze the files to their minimum size, you can’t squeeze them again. So zipping a zipped file won’t do anything, and on some occasions, it can make the size even bigger.
However, there are other compressing methods that are more effective than ZIP. First, you should know which files are suitable for compression. Second, you may either use some zipping alternatives or split the zip into smaller files. You will see how to do all that in this article.
Although some files can compress well and save you a decent amount of storage space, there are certain files that don’t compress well. For example, audio and video files such as JPEG or MP3 files since they are already heavily compressed. However, you can shrink image files like TIFF or RAW or AIFF and WAV for audio because they are all lossless (uncompressed) formats.
New text document formats such as Microsoft Office’s DOCX are also compressed, but you can squeeze some other textual formats like TXT and RTF. But considering that these formats are originally very lightweight, there’s usually no need to compress them.
Since ZIP is a very old compression format, it won’t compress as well as some newer ones. If you really want to save storage space or make your files easier to send via the internet, you should look at other compression tools.
ZIP is still a very popular compression method because newer operating systems have a built-in feature that can recognize and decompress these files, so there’s no need to download additional software. However, if you would like a more efficient way to shrink certain files, you should get a different tool.
The most efficient and commonly used compressing tools today include:
Most of these ZIP alternatives have similar compressing options. Let’s focus on WinRAR and see why it’s better than regular ZIP compression.
When you open WinRAR, choose a folder or a file that you want to compress and click the ‘Add’ button from the file menu. A new window will open with various options.
There are tools with some additional features. For example, if you’re using 7zip, you can choose the Word Size (similar to dictionary size) and the Solid Block Size (keeps similar-sized files together).
By compressing your folders to some of these archive formats using the appropriate features, you can shrink large files to up to one-fourth or even one-fifth of their uncompressed size.
You can use the same tools to separate a single ZIP archive into a bunch of smaller archives. This will not make your file smaller, but it will allow you to share it in smaller parts to other users. This is beneficial if you have limited storage, bandwidth, or a very large single file you want to share.
Usually, this option is in the same menu with all the features from the previous section. All you have to do is to choose ZIP as an archive format and locate the ‘Split to volumes’ option.
The ‘Split to volumes’ option allows you to choose an exact size of each archive, which will then start the compression and splitting process. Once it finishes, you will need to store all the parts of a ZIP archive in the same folder. Later, when you start extracting them, you only need to click on one of the archives and all the parts will automatically be merged together.
‘Nothing is too big to attempt’ William Van Horne
These days sharing large files is supposed to be pretty easy. For instance, with such a handy and intuitive service as Dropbox in your arsenal, you have an opportunity to download or share a Zip file via a link without much effort. Nonetheless, you might have already found out that things do not always go that smooth. So, if you are looking for a way how to upload large files to Dropbox because you have run into the Zip file is too large Dropbox issue, you have definitely come to the right place – we have a whole lot of proven tips on how to fix the problem in question:
To begin with, there is one key fact that you should take into consideration: the file or folder you wish to share or download via your Dropbox web account may not exceed a limit of one GB. If the uploaded file exceeds this total size, the Zip file is too large Dropbox issue crops up, which means you cannot download the file, using your web account. Unfortunately, the same goes for shared links you provide other people with: those who have a Dropbox account and those who do not cannot download a Zip file larger than one GB, using your shared link. As such, the first solution would be to meet the stated Dropbox requirement for downloads and avoid sharing files that are larger than allowed.
If you are not satisfied with the one GB restriction, you can install the Dropbox desktop application and enjoy a larger download limit. As such, go to the official Dropbox webpage and download the desktop client installer. Launch it to get the client up and running. Now you can open the shared Zip file preview and select the Add to my Dropbox option. The file will be automatically synced so that you can open it from your personal computer. Click on Open to allow your File Explorer open the file.
And here is an option for those who are not keen on using the Dropbox desktop client: in such a case, what you should do is simply break you large Zip file into smaller parts so that the person you are willing to share it with could download them separately.
You might as well automate the splitting process by using a file compression utility. For instance, the free 7-Zip tool will come in very handy for this purpose. Thus, you are free to install it on your PC. Then right-click on the file you wish to split and configure the utility to break the Zip up into smaller files. You can save them to your My Dropbox desktop folder or upload them directly to Dropbox.com. Click OK in the tool to get the job done.
If the size of the shared Zip you wish to download does not exceed the Dropbox download limit, it is time you checked your hard drive – the chances are it does not have enough storage space, which leads to the Zip file is too large Dropbox issue.
In a situation like this, we advise you to clean up your drive in order to free up some valuable disk space – otherwise, you will keep encountering download issues and even experience poor PC performance.
So, here is our guide on how to free up drive space in Windows 10:
The list above is by no means exhaustive. There are other ways how to free up more hard disk space easily – make sure to check them all.
There are also third-party solutions that can clean up your drive and free up a significant amount of your disk space. Using them will actually save you a lot of time and effort. As such, you are free to choose any option that is dependable and reputable. In this article, we recommend you the following safe and effective tools:
[block-bs_place] We also recommend you to learn how to use drive more efficiently to save disk space in Windows 10.
Use an online file sharing service and send a link to download the file to your recipient. Split the file into multiple parts to share and the recipient can reconstitute the parts into a single file. A good example of this is the RAR format, of which there are a number of great (free) solutions such as 7-Zip.
