after creating a zip file, can i delete the originals?

[miss-tippy]

i have a lot of older photos that i wanted to archive, so i created an archive but all of the original photos are still in the folder.
can i delete the originals now or would that permanently delete them from my computer?
thank you!

 

[spinnerlys]

Yes you can.

As you created a .zip file/archive with all the contents you choose to compress/make an archive of, be sure to save the .zip file at a safe place, so you don't accidentally deleted that file.

Then you can delete the original files and folders.

But beware that a .zip file might get corrupt due to copying, which could cause the .zip file not to be extractable in the future.

Aside from having one file (.zip) instead of having multiple files and even folders, did you gain any HDD space? Meaning, is the .zip file that much smaller than the files/folders you choose to compress?

 

[rgarjr]

yeah if you're hurting for disk space you can erase them, since they're on the zip file.

 

[Tumbleweed666]

i have a lot of older photos that i wanted to archive, so i created an archive but all of the original photos are still in the folder.
can i delete the originals now or would that permanently delete them from my computer?
thank you!

I'm guessing the ones in the zip are only about 5-10% smaller in total? Better not to zip them, the disk space savings aren't worth the fact that just one single corruption can nuke them all in one go. Just put them inside one folder. You can buy huge external disk drives for peanuts, buy one of those and put the folder on that (and backup elsewhere as well)