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Windows 10 Compression


You may have heard the term compression before and not be quite sure about what it is and what your options are to use compression.

Compression will take the files you have and compress them down to a smaller size to save disk space. It uses symbols and special characters to replace words or phrases to save you disk space.

There are a couple of different ways to compress your files, you can use the built-in NTFS compression.

NTFS Compression

Windows by default has compression built into its NTFS format. NTFS format is a formatting system for hard drives before you can begin to use the hard drive. We will not go into specifics of all that, but know that if you're using Windows, chances are you’re using the NTFS format.

Within this format, compression is allowed if you enable it. 

Compression and decompression is done on the fly without you noticing… maybe, we will get to that later. So if you save a file, in the background it will compress a file as soon as you hit save. And once you open the file, it will decompress the file without you noticing.

If you take a file and send it to a coworker or a friend who doesn’t use compression, it will decompress on the fly before they notice it.

So as you can see, it can be really handy. The amount of space it saves from what I have been reading can be up to 15%.

The downside of NTFS compression is that it could slow down your computer a bit. I wouldn’t worry about it too much if you have a faster CPU(the brain of your computer). But if you have an older CPU, that isn’t fast, you may see that it gets slower.

With the rise of super-fast hard drive, that are relatively cheap. I choose not to use this feature. But if you want to enable this feature for your drive, check out this how-to article:

How to enable NTFS compression

Let us move on to another option for compressing your files. The file-level compression, Zipped folder.

Zipped Folders

Another option that you can use to compress files is Zipped Folders. Instead of compressing your entire drive and having Windows do the compression and decompression. You can have a zipped folder do the work for you and you can choose what is compressed and what isn’t compressed.

This is handy so you can choose what files you compress, or if you have to send a file over the internet through say, email, you can compress the file and it will then be smaller for quicker delivery.

If you work on a Windows machine you probably encountered this type of file at one point or time. It will be a .zip format and most cases look like a suitcase or a folder with a zipper on it.

Some people choose to use this folder as an archive, if you finish a project and no longer need to use it, you can drop it into a zipped folder where it will be compressed and join the other files in the graveyard.

If you want to learn how to set up a zipped folder, check out this how-to:

How to create a zipped folder

Compression is a great feature to know about if you’re running out of disk space and need to free up some additional space if you’re beginning to run out, and need to buy some time until you can get more storage.

I hope you found this information helpful, if you’re looking for any technical support, please check out my  main page at:

Sinntechnologies.net

Thanks! Have a good day!




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Location: Middleton, WI, USA

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