Configure WinZip Courier

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WinZip Courier is an application for sharing files that is automatically active when you open Microsoft Outlook. It can also integrate with your web browser so that you can zip, protect, and share email attachments directly from Outlook.com (Hotmail), Yahoo! Mail, Gmail, and Zoho. Additional information about usage and configuration with webmail services can be found here.

By zipping email attachments and/or by uploading them to a cloud service and sending a download link, the size of Outlook data files can be kept to a minimum. WinZip Courier can be used with the same Cloud Services available in WinZip. Also, with WinZip Courier conversion features, you can convert Microsoft Office documents to PDF files, you can further protect appropriate image attachments by adding a watermark to them, and/or you can physically resize image files to create much smaller Zip files.

If you are using Courier as part of a WinZip Enterprise license, the services that are available to users is completely within the control of the software administrator and email attachment security can be maintained through the use of encryption and password policies.

Configuring Options in a Message

In each active email message have many configuration options. You can always turn a feature on or off in a message and/or configure how that feature is going to work. By default, Courier will zip the files you attach. If you attach just one file, referred to as single files, they will be zipped if not listed in the exclusions (archive files and some others that will not compress well). Additionally, if the Zip file that Courier builds is 5 MB or larger in size, you will be asked to select a cloud service to which you will then have to log in. Courier will upload the Zip file to your selected cloud service and insert a link to the Zip file for the receiver to download the Zip file.

Courier features in a message

The picture above shows the WinZip Courier section of the Message tab in an active Outlook email message. Please note the vertical line that separates three features on the left side from five features on the right side of this section.

The five features on the right side of the WinZip Courier section all affect the options that otherwise run automatically. The Zip Attachments button is highlighted (or "lit up") showing that this feature is turned on. You have the option to:

By default, all conversions are off. If you would like to change your compression setting (.zip or .zipx) and/or change any of the conversion settings, you can click the Courier tab in your message to do so. Any changes you configure while you are in a message will only affect that message. They will not configure Courier to use those settings by default.

The three features on the left side of the WinZip Courier section are:

Configuring Default Settings

Open Courier Options

Once you have determined the Courier features you want used for most, if not all, of your email messages, you can configure them in the WinZip Courier Options dialog. To display this dialog, open Outlook, click the Courier drop down menu, and choose Options. You can open a similar dialog provided for those using a webmail interface (it applies to Outlook usage as well), by doing the following:

  1. Click Start > All Apps (or All Programs) > WinZip Courier
  2. Choose Configure WinZip Courier

Courier Options dialog

The WinZip Courier Options dialog has four configuration sections and a Registration section below. These sections are:

Cloud Service

Click the Cloud options button to:

Attachments

Emails

If you check the box next to Encrypt email messages by default, the text of your email message will be saved as an Outlook message file (.msg), standard instructions will replace your text, and the .msg file will be encrypted. The Encryption options button here is the same as the one in the Attachment options dialog.

Conversions 

Check one or more of these boxes, and Courier will convert your files as described before they are zipped. Buttons to the right of each description allow you to configure each conversion setting. They are:

Note: The dialog that opens from Start also includes a button to open the About WinZip Courier dialog.

Exclude Attachments

Attachments Options dialog

Starting with WinZip Courier 7.0 the Exclude Attachments feature has been introduced. This feature in the Attachments Options dialog allows you to specify files that WinZip Courier will never zip (does not apply if Encrypt is selected). In the box provided, you would type an extension for the kind of file that you do not want Courier ever to zip. For example, it may be that you commonly send a number of small text files and do not want these zipped, even if you send more than one. If you want to specify multiple file extensions, place a semicolon between the entries.

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