Split a Large Zip into Multi-Part Archives

Break a huge archive into fixed-size pieces and rejoin them later with one command.

macOSZip & ArchivesFilesarchiveLow risk

First create the archive with zip -0, then run zip -s 100m big.zip --out big-part.zip to cut it into 100 MB parts.

01Command

Command

$ zip -r -0 big.zip ~/Desktop/BigFolder/ && zip -s 100m big.zip --out big-part.zip

02What it does

Info-ZIP requires the source archive to be uncompressed (-0) before splitting, which is why two steps are shown; the result is big-part.z01, .z02 … plus a final .zip. On any Mac, unzipping the final .zip piece pulls in the earlier parts automatically, and 7-Zip does the same on Windows. Choose -s 1900m for DVD-sized or -s 4g for FAT32-friendly chunks.

03Risk

RiskLow risk

RequirementsBuilt-in zip 3.0 or newer (standard on modern macOS)

!Warning: Keep all parts in the same folder — a single missing .zXX part makes the archive impossible to extract.

04Undo

✓No undo needed — this command does not change persistent state.

05Sources

zip – Package and compress files
ss64.com · technical · 2026-09-17
Evidence: zip -s size creates split archives in 100m/1g style chunks; the source must first be a non-compressed (store, -0) archive, and --out writes the split files.

Last verified: 2026-09-18 · Category: Files & Folders