This makes the ZIP file format convenient for sharing and distributing groups of files. When this is done, the path and folder information of the file tree is preserved inside the ZIP file. In addition to compression, ZIP files are archives that can group together multiple files and folders. In the cloud, ZIP files are commonly found as both Gmail attachments, as well as files stored in Google Drive or other cloud-based storage systems such as Dropbox and Microsoft OneDrive. Today, the ZIP file format remains in heavy use in the internet and in the cloud, with billions of such files in circulation.

Once received, the ZIP file would then be opened and its contents decompressed ('unzipped') onto a user's computer. It also allowed for multiple files and folders to be grouped together ('zipped') and transferred as a single ZIP file. Using ZIP compression regularly saved minutes or even hours off of file transfers. In this era, file transfers occurred using MODEMs and transfer speeds were very limited. The ZIP file format dates to the late 1980s when it received heavy use in pre-internet-era Bulletin Board Systems, or BBSes.

The ZIP file format is very popular for efficiently storing and transferring groups of files in a variety of business and personal applications. ZIP files are compressed archives that group together one or more files into a single file, compressing the files (making them smaller) that are contained inside.

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