How much Windows 11 compress files when I select Compress content for a folder ?

William654 · Jul 23, 2022

Hi

Any one measure it ? is it high or average or low compression ? I know that some files like videos/zip/rar wont compress good but I am curious about other files like pdf ,images and databases ?

Necrosaro · Jul 23, 2022

William654 said:
Hi

Any one measure it ? is it high or average or low compression ? I know that some files like videos/zip/rar wont compress good but I am curious about other files like pdf ,images and databases ?

View attachment 34873

I never compress files unless it is something I am not going to be using for a very long time(and even then I usually don't) I usually use another program to do that.

Compressing files through windows compressor saves a bit of space depending on the file. Some files compress better then others but to give you an estimate maybe 10-15 percent of original size.

This also slows things down quite a bit, what's the reason for doing it if you don't mind me asking.

William654 · Jul 23, 2022

Necrosaro said:
what's the reason for doing it if you don't mind me asking.

save space without having to use apps like winrar to compress and extract to use the files (pdf). Also be able to search easily for the file I want

Necrosaro · Jul 23, 2022

William654 said:
save space without having to use apps like winrar to compress and extract to use the files (pdf). Also be able to search easily for the file I want

What files are you compressing? If they are just word documents stuff like that it's fine but getting into video/audio then hope you are not planning on using them anytime soon.

bobkn · Jul 23, 2022

It is lossless compression, so that the contents of the files is not changed.

The amount of compression will vary a lot by the files. You won't gain much compression with files that are already compressed, like jpeg pictures or mp4 movie files.

I've never tried compression on an NTFS partition. My belief is that it is useless, or worse. Useless if it doesn't save much space, worse if it uses significant CPU resources to compress and decompress the files.