What is a .ZIP file and How to Extract It?

A .ZIP file is an archive file containing one or more files or folders that have been compressed. The file size of compressed file is much lower than the size when it's not yet compress. .ZIP files generally use the file extensions ".zip" or ".ZIP" and can be decompress or unzip by a specific file archiver. Almost all software packages that can be download on the Internet are compressed, mostly in zip (file format). There are ways to compress zip file, and the standard way to do it is by using a file archiver.

Now we will use a file archiver to unzip a zip file. My recommended file archiver to extract a zip file is no other than an open source, 7-Zip. And here is the 7 steps to do it using 7-Zip:

1. The first thing you need to know is your computer must have file archiver program installed on it. For example a file archiver at this time is 7-Zip, and the guidelines of this program's installation is written in What is and How to Install a File Archiver?
2. When the file archiver installed on your computer, just right click on the zip file that you wish to be extracted or in other term, to unzip.
3. Click or just point your mouse cursor to the "7-Zip" option on the options that would appeared after doing the previous step.
4. Then now click "Extract file..." on the bar at the side of the "7-Zip" option that will appear after the previous step.
5. Now you will see a new window titled Extract. There you will see the “Extract to:” text field filled with the path name of a folder where the extracted files of the zip file will be placed later. You can even browse that field and change the pathname to a different folder if you want. Yet, you can also configure the “Path mode”, “Overwrite mode” and fill the “Password” field if you wish. There is a "Help" button if you didn't knew those options. And click "OK".
6. In this time the zip file is now Extracting... or unzipping, in just a second!
7. After the extracting would be completed, the zip file is now unzipped and the path location of the unzipped folder is the pathname of the “Extract to:” text field that you have been chosen in the step 5.

Here is the extra guides to extract a zip file using a shareware file archiver, WinRAR:

Reminder, this file archiver isn't free. This program's recommendation is After a 40 day trial period you must either register it or remove it from your computer.

1. First, if you doesn't have WinRAR, download it at WinRAR archiver, a powerful tool to process RAR and ZIP files but this program is shareware and not open source. Or else you would need to jump to the step 3 of this instruction.
2. Install this computer program on your computer. You can follow the Installation of a file archiver 7-Zip that's linked on the step 1 of our previous instruction, because their installations may possibly have a similarity.
3. After installing WinRAR, right click to the zip file that you want to unzip.
4. Follow up by clicking the Extract to [zip file name]\. For example, the name of the file that you want to unzip is "example", the option that you need to click is “Extract to example\”
5. And in a second, a new folder will then appear on the folder where your zip file located. This new folder is the folder of the unzipped file, that folder name is as "example" if the name of the zip file is "example".

Note that there are many options that can be use to extract a zip file using a file archiver, other than the options that we've been used on the two instructions above. Actually, you can also directly “Extract to...” the zip file using the 7-Zip program as what we did on the second instruction using WinRAR. And the WinRAR program can also do what we did using 7-Zip with a slightly different of functionality. Just explore the other options and ways to unzip a file if you want! But remember, the standard way of unzipping files is by using file archiver.