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Is there a way to send a zip file by renaming the extension and the receiver changing the extension back? (lemmy.world)

submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by cheese_greater@lemmy.world to c/nostupidquestions@lemmy.ca

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I need to send many documents and i have everything neatly in a folder directory structure that I would prefer stays intact but thr system wont accept zips

Can I rename the extension something I know is accepted and they can just change it back to zip? Its gonna take forever to do it the normal way by having to upload each individual document also without the folder structure context it will be a big mess

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[–] neidu3@sh.itjust.works 7 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Should work, yes. A filename is independent of the file contents, and this includes the extension. You can rename it back and forth as much as you like.

Caveats, presuming you'resending via mail:

There could be a size limitation for attachments
There could be some sort of content scanning/verification at play

Alternatively, upload the file somewhere and send a link instead

[–] cheese_greater@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I just tried duplicating and renaming it then renaming it back and it seems to work, locally at least

[–] paraplu@piefed.social 5 points 2 days ago

Yes the file extension isn't part of the file itself. Changing the name isn't destructive.

It's mostly a hint to the operating system of what programs can interact with it, and sometimes to the programs how they should try to interact with it. Depending on the structure of the underlying file, a program may know what to do, or it might freak out, until you give it a reasonable extension.

[–] hesh@quokk.au 3 points 2 days ago

Renaming the extension back and forth should work fine. If the system you're using just checks filename extensions that should solve your problem. However, it's also likely that such a system would also check the file type (aka MIME type) by scanning the file contents, which just renaming the file would not fool, since it will still recognize it as a zip.