Archive and compressed file extensions

An archive file type is a collection of computer files that have been packaged together for backup, to transport them to some other location, so that more hard disk storage can be made available, or for some other purpose. An archive can include a simple list of files or files organized under the original directory or catalog structure (depends on how the particular compressing program supports archiving).

File compression is a programming method in which large files are compressed using compression algorithm into smaller files, which are after supported by a specific compression software.
This is a very useful method, if you want to email several files or folders which are large in size. You just need to compress the files in a particular folder and send it via email. To access those files, the recipient of the files will need to have the same software with which the files have been compressed.

The most popular archive and compression utilities are WinZip (zip file extension), WinRAR (rar file extension), 7-zip (7z file extension), Windows Cabinet (cab file extension [Microsoft]) and many others.