WinZip: Split a Zip file

Scenario

You have a file that is too large to email to someone even after you’ve zipped it. Either their email system won’t accept it or yours won’t let you send it. You can use alternatives like a Gmail account (20 MB limit) or Skype or an instant messaging service or an FTP service like YouSendIt (I blogged about these options before).

But even then, unless you’re using a paid account, there may be a file limit (e.g. YouSendIt has a 100 MB limit for an individual file with its free account).

In my case, I had a 135 MB Word document (don’t ask…) I needed to transfer it from my client’s system to mine, and then back again after I’d finished working on it.

Solution

WinZip has a file splitting option! And you can specify how big or small you want the split files to be.

To split a Zip file:

1. Use WinZip to zip up the file, as normal.
2. Double-click on the zipped file to open it in WinZip.
3. Select the zipped document.
4. On the WinZip menu, select Actions > Split.
5. Give the split files a name — this name must be different from the original.
6. Select a Part size from the drop-down list — if you select Other size you can then define whether you want this size to be in Bytes, KB or MB. (For my 135 MB file I selected Other size and made the parts 70 MB — this created two files, one of 70 MB and the other the remaining size.)
7. Click OK.
8. WinZip now splits the file in the number of parts necessary to complete the job. You will get one or more files that end in z01, z02, z03 etc. (these are the parts) plus a zip file (the master that controls the parts).
9. Upload or email all the parts, plus the zip file.

To put the split files back together:

1. Save all files (the parts plus the zip file) to the same folder.
2. Right-click on the zip file and select WinZip > Extract to here.
3. As if by magic, WinZip will put all the pieces back together again giving you one large file and you’re done!