File zip is useful for data compression, encryption, sharing, and backup. It is not often to zip files on iPhone or iPad. But sometimes however you may receive zip files on iOS device that you need to unzip. Unfortunately there is no stock app that can help us zip or unzip files on iPhone or iPad. Since iOS 13, the Files app was introduced and we can now compress and decompress archive files on iPhone without third-party apps. In this quick guide, we will show you how to zip files or unzip files on iOS device using a third-party iPhone file explorer – Owlfiles. This app can be used for many different purposes, file management, transfer and more.
How to zip files on iPhone iPad?
Use the Share or Copy to feature to copy files from other apps, iPhone local storage or a cloud service to the file explorer app. If the files are saved on your computer, you can enable SMB server on PC, then use this file manager and transfer tool to connect your iPhone to Windows SMB server for file sharing. Mac computer and many other devices can also be connected using this file transfer app.
Tap Edit, touch to select all files you like to compress, then choose More >> Archive (zip), give the new archive file a name, then an archive file in .zip format with the given name will be created in the same folder in the file explorer app on iPhone.
How to unzip files on iPhone iPad?
Received some archived documents through email or downloaded from a cloud storage? The stock Mail app on iPhone allows users to view contents of zipped files, including text files, pdf, images, Word docs, and even Excel spreadsheets. If the archive files are compressed in RAR or archive formats, your iPhone or iPad doesn’t support, you can use the above mentioned app to unzip them on iPhone or iPad. Again use the Share or Copy to feature to copy files from other apps, your iPhone local storage or a cloud service to the file explorer app. Touch the archive file,then choose Unarchive in the pop-up dialogue to decompress the ZIP, RAR or other archive files on iPhone.
Update May 2020: this article was originally published in March 2018 and has since been updated. the method to compress or decompress files on iPhone without third-party apps was added in this update.