How to make a ZIP file smaller in three steps
Drop the archive
Pick a .zip or .tar.gz file. DigiCompress checks it is a genuine archive and safe to open before doing anything else.
Choose a level
Every photo, PDF and Word, PowerPoint or Excel file inside is optimized at the level you pick. Other files are kept exactly as they were.
Download the new archive
You get the same folders and file names in a smaller archive of the same type. Then the tab clears both copies from memory.
Why re-zipping doesn’t help — and what does
ZIP compression works well on text, but photos, PDFs and Office files are already compressed internally. Zipping them again saves almost nothing, which is why a folder of phone photos makes a ZIP nearly as big as the photos themselves.
The real saving comes from shrinking what is inside. DigiCompress opens the archive in your browser, optimizes each supported file with the same engines as its PDF, image and Word tools, keeps a change only when it makes that file smaller, and rebuilds the archive. Project folders, client deliveries and photo dumps often end up a fraction of their size — and none of it is uploaded.
Tips for smaller archives
- Photo folders shrink most
- Archives full of JPG or PNG photos and scanned PDFs see the biggest savings.
- Videos inside are kept as-is
- To shrink video, use the video compressor on each clip, which handles files up to 2 GB.
- Folder structure is preserved
- Names, folders and the order of files stay the same, so links between files keep working.
- Password-protected entries are skipped
- Encrypted files inside an archive can’t be read, so they are copied unchanged.
Supported formats and limits
| Format | Extensions | Max size | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| ZIP | .zip | 1 GB | Up to 10,000 files inside |
| Gzipped tarball | .tar.gz, .tgz | 1 GB | Common on Linux and macOS |
Archives that would expand to more than 2 GB, or that look like “zip bombs”, are refused for your safety.