[Macpilot]

I am confused. I can't see the benefit of the Finder's "archive" feature. The resulting file is nearly the same size as the original. What purpose does it have? Is it just to make backing up your files simpler as you would have less files?

Also, without paying for Dropstuff, how does one stuff/compress lots of files into a much smaller file? I tried GUI tar and it did the same thing the Finder did; made a file that was almost identical in size to the original.

Is archiving the same as stuffing?

[CharlesS]

What kind of file are you trying to compress?

[Macpilot]

Just curious, for example, if I wanted to send a bunch of photos that would exceed an email limit. Let's say 30 photos totaling about 50 megabytes. Compress them donw to something that I could email. Is there freeware that does this?

[TETENAL]

You can not compress compressed files. A JPEG foto or an MPEG movie are already compressed file formats. If you want to reduce the size of a JPEG image you need to save it with higher JPEG compression and/or reduced image size. You can do this in Preview for example (File->Export->Format: JPEG->Options->Quality) or iPhoto (Mail button).

[Chuckit]

Incidentally, you'll never get good compression with TAR — it doesn't compress things.

[CharlesS]

He might have been using one of the programs such as DropTar that makes a .tgz, not just a .tar.

However, yeah, if you're starting with a file type that's already compressed, like .jpg, you're not going to notice much of a difference in file size with basically any method.

[Macpilot]

Thanks for the info!