Quick Tip: Save Hard Drive Space with 7-Zip
I have a lot of .PSD files, because Photoshop. Anyways, they take up a lot of space, mainly since I make many layer copies (because you never edit destructively!). So many of my .PSD files are 100 MB or larger, sometimes they're larger than 1 GB.
I discovered a while ago, that if you compress your .PSD files with 7-Zip, they actually compress very well, and you can often save around 50% of the space it takes to store them.
For instance, here I have six .PDF files here, ranging in size. In total, they take up 937 MB of hard drive space.
Now, if we right click on the selected group of files, and go to '7-Zip' > 'Add to archive...', and set 'Compression level' to 'Ultra', we can compress the six files (which makes moving them easier), and this creates us a 7-Zip file (extension .7z), and as such, the results are below.
Once the compression is finished (this can take a long time, depending on your CPU/PC Specs, and your desired settings, as well as how many and how large your .PSD files are), we get a single file with a total size of 414 MB. Which is a total savings of 523 MB, or around 56% savings. Pretty significant, considering you could save an additional copy of the 7-Zip folder, and still have room to spare.
And 7-Zip can compress anything; of course your results will vary. I've found that .PSD files happen to compress really well, usually around 50% savings. You can also add a password to encrypt the files, so nobody else can access them.
So try 7-Zip, it's free, and start saving some space!
Note: This is not an ad for 7-Zip- as I write this, it looks like I was sponsored or something, of course I was not; I just really like 7-Zip.
So thanks for reading as usual.
- Alex
I discovered a while ago, that if you compress your .PSD files with 7-Zip, they actually compress very well, and you can often save around 50% of the space it takes to store them.
For instance, here I have six .PDF files here, ranging in size. In total, they take up 937 MB of hard drive space.
Now, if we right click on the selected group of files, and go to '7-Zip' > 'Add to archive...', and set 'Compression level' to 'Ultra', we can compress the six files (which makes moving them easier), and this creates us a 7-Zip file (extension .7z), and as such, the results are below.
Once the compression is finished (this can take a long time, depending on your CPU/PC Specs, and your desired settings, as well as how many and how large your .PSD files are), we get a single file with a total size of 414 MB. Which is a total savings of 523 MB, or around 56% savings. Pretty significant, considering you could save an additional copy of the 7-Zip folder, and still have room to spare.
And 7-Zip can compress anything; of course your results will vary. I've found that .PSD files happen to compress really well, usually around 50% savings. You can also add a password to encrypt the files, so nobody else can access them.
So try 7-Zip, it's free, and start saving some space!
Note: This is not an ad for 7-Zip- as I write this, it looks like I was sponsored or something, of course I was not; I just really like 7-Zip.
So thanks for reading as usual.
- Alex
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