How can you attach a folder to an email?
Sometimes you’ll have several files that need to be emailed to someone, but you’d rather they were kept together. The answer is to drop them into a folder. But when you come to attach that folder to your email, it just won’t work.
The answer is to zip the folder first. A zipped (or compressed folder) will appear to the system as a single file, regardless of how many actual files are stored inside it.
And since it’s a single file, it can be attached to your email. I’ll show you how to do it below.
Attaching A Folder To An Email.
Adding a folder as an attachment to an email requires that you zip the folder first. You don’t need to download any special software, Windows can handle it.
Zipping files and folders is slightly different depending on whether you’re using Windows 10 or Windows 11, so we’ll go through the process in both operating systems.
To Zip A Folder In Windows 10.
If you’re using Windows 10, find the folder you want to add as an attachment to your email.
Then right click on it to open the options menu.
On the menu, hover your mouse pointer over the “Send To” option.
On the second menu, left-click Compressed (zipped) folder.
To Zip A Folder In Windows 11.
For Windows 11 users, find your folder and right-click on it to open the context menu.
On the menu, left-click “Compress to Zip file”.
Sometimes the “Compress to zip file” option doesn’t appear on the Windows 11 context menu.
If that happens to you, then click Show more options, which is near the bottom of the menu.
After clicking “Show more options” the menu reverts to being more like the Windows 10 menu.
To zip your folder now, hover your mouse pointer over the “Send To” option and then click “Compressed (zipped) folder”
The Zipped Folder.
After you’ve zipped your folder, you should see that you’ve now got two of them. They’ll have the exact same folder name, but one is the original and the other is the zipped copy.
When you’re searching your computer for the folder to attach it to an email, it’s the zipped version that you’ll use. Not the original one.
You can tell them apart by the zipper. In Windows 10, the zipper is vertical and in Windows 11 the zipper is horizontal. But it means the same thing.
How To Attach A Folder To An Email.
Now that the folder has been zipped (compressed), attaching it to an email is exactly the same as attaching any other file.
Log in to your email account and start a new email. Fill in the recipient’s email address, add a subject and then something in the body of the message. All exactly the same as you normally would when sending emails.
To attach your folder, click the Attach button (paper clip icon). In the explorer window that opens, navigate to your folder and then select the zipped version of your folder.
You’ll find that it will attach to the email easily. No problem.
Summary.
Attaching a folder to an email isn’t that difficult and can really save you some tedious work when you’ve got several files to send.
You still have to be mindful of the email size limits that will apply to your email service, usually something between 20 to 25 megabytes, but other than that, you’re good to go.
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