You have several options to split a file into multiple files. The three options are easy to use and have different file splitting options. For instance, you can use 7-Zip to split and compress your output files, potentially saving space on your hard drive. Once you’ve split your files, you might want to send them to your friends. Zip multiple files. Step 1: Hold down the mouse button or trackpad to draw a box around all the files you want to compress. Alternatively, press the Command button while tapping the trackpad.

Click here to return to the 'Zip multiple files into individual archives via Automator' hint

for folders, try the -r option .
zip -r '$f' $f'
from the man page -- a little confusing that the args are 'foo' and 'foo'. the first arg is turned into 'foo.zip' . the second arg is the file spec (of files which will be placed into the .zip)
~~~
To zip up an entire directory, the command:
zip -r foo foo
creates the archive foo.zip, containing all the files and direc-
tories in the directory foo that is contained within the current
directory.
~~~

Okay I must be doing something wrong because I did try to mix this hint (zip individual files) with the folder argument and it's not working..
I try both:
--
for f in '$@'
do
zip -r '$f' $f'
done
--
and
--
for f in '$@'
do
zip -r '$f.zip' '$f'
done
--
whitout any luck.. :( I must admit I'm not used to play with Automator and Run Shell Script..

Never mind.
I just tried the script for individual files with folders selected and it work just the same (~/foo/bar with foo selected become ~/foo.zip). Doh!

Okay, one last thing.. ;)
When I zip a folder with this script, let's say /foo from the Desktop level (~/Desktop/foo),
everything is working fine, i.e. it gives me a file named foo.zip at the same level as my original /foo folder (~/Desktop/foo).
The problem is when I unzip it. I end up with nested folders, i.e. /Users/MyUserName/Desktop/foo on the ~/Desktop folder. Is there a way to not include all those (almost empty) folders in the script?
The idea would be to make the script behave just like the 'Create Archive of..' in the contextual menu

The Automator workflow One Zipper does the same thing, but uses the cleaner 'xargs'. It's saved as a droplet, but can easily be converted to use as a contextual menu item.

---
www.automatorworld.com
'Better Living Through Macintosh Scripting'

IMHO it is better to just throw them in a folder and zip the folder. It's my pet peeve when a bunch of files unzip and end up all over the place as individual files. I'd rather unzip them into a nice folder. Dymo stamps application.

In order to make this automator work flow work transparently with both files and directories, use file tests, like so: Have not tested, but should work just fine.

---
The Apotek
http://theapotek.com
The Executioner's Summary:
http://www.last.fm/label/Broken+Hill+Music/playlists/6761?autostart

Sorry, does not seem to work. Added .zip to two places and it would partially work.
However, what would be nice is to have the workflow go like this:
Set up: single file on desktop, folder on desktop with some files in it and another folder in it with some more file (i.e. a level 2)
Now, results: run the work flow and have it zip the single file. Next, it would zip the folder and the subfolder. This does not happen now - no second level.
Also, would like to stip the path out of the zip file just to the folder level. For the single file a -j seems to work. However, how do you get the file path to just start at the folder being zipped, not at the user/desktop/etc level when unzipping?
Can this be done?

I use a workflow with the following script, which does the following:

1. Handles both files and directories
2. Uses bzip2 instead of zip (better compression)
3. Files are replaced by original_filename.bz2
4. Directories are replaced by original_directoryname.tar.bz2
5. In the event of an error, the original is not deleted
6. File names are quoted properly to take into consideration embedded blanks which would mess up other solutions I've seen

I would love it if this action worked, it would be perfect as i agree, i would like the extra compression afforded by it, however it simply does not work. . . do you think you could go over exactly what i should do in the automator terminal? as in should it be '/bin/bash' and 'asas arguments' ? also i copied your code exactly and pasted it in the script box, perhaps i was supposed to do something else as well? thanks.

So many years have gone by and I still haven't found any better script to what our script does!
There is only one problem, when applied through Automator (on 10.6.8 or 10.5) is crashes after it compresses the 1st folder. Do you any idea why or if there is anything one can do to avoid this problem?

Chas, you are missing the point.
Let's say you have a game emulator and you have 1500 roms. The emulator accepts .zip and if you zip all of the roms you save a significant amount of space.
Zipping all of the files into a single zip will not work as the emulator will probably only load the first file in the zip.
This hint is very useful for us emu geeks.

This seems to work, but it only works if you select an entire folder and run the automator scrpt from there, otherwise if you select individual files it actually searches each file for folders and zips the files within the 'package contents' : so workflow looks like this:
in the automator place action 'get selected finder items'
followed by 'get folder contents'
followed by 'run shell script' : keep the shell as /bin/bash and the pass input as 'to stdin' the actual script is
xargs -I {} zip {}.zip {}
that's it. save the workflow as a finder selection and select a folder full of files you wish to individually compress, and it works but yes unfortunately it still makes it have that annoying files structure, which i personally can't stand, and also it doesn't seem to like working with other folders within folders and it can't seem to compress .apps very well, lastly i would like to have the option to individually select groups of files from within a folder and zip those.i dunno what's up with that. so maybe someone can take this script and flesh it out? :)

Creating A Zip File Mac

How To Zip Files On Mac: Save Space With Compressed Archives ..

thanks, useful tip.
does anyone know a way to get around the directory structure.. at the moment i have to dump my folders in the root dir to avoid the problems unzipping.

and what if you want to encrypt each file with the same password?
just adding the -e-argument fails for obvious reasons. so how?

Mac Zip Into Multiple Files Without

found this tip via Google. you have no idea how much time you just saved me.
i actually prefer using Terminal/Shell for zipping files..some people with older Windows systems seem to struggle with zip files made on a Mac and using the shell helps.

Mac Zip Into Multiple Files Using