Attach folders in Hotmail email messages: send as attachment
HotmailUniversity
You may already know how to send email attachments in Hotmail messages; when you are sending a single file attachment, or just a few, doing it the usual way works fine, and Windows Live Hotmail will add these files to your email. But what happens when you are trying to send a lot of files by email? Or even try to email an entire folder and its content? Since Hotmail will let you attach pretty much all kinds of common files to your messages, this tutorial will show you how to send folders as email attachment, simply by making the folder a single file to attach; this approach works by default in Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7 - as well as any other operating system that lets you compress folders into zip files.
Send emails with folders attached to messages
Attaching a folder in Hotmail only takes a few clicks, as you'll learn in this tutorial. We are using Windows 7 for this tutorial, but the process is the same in Windows Vista, and quite similar in Mac OS X or Linux.
First, locate the folder you want to attach to a Hotmail email; then, right-click on it, and choose "Send to" from the context menu that opens. Then, choose "Compressed (zipped) folder" from the submenu, as shown on this screenshot:
As soon as you do, Windows will create a zip file containing the entire folder and the files (and subfolders) it contained, all placed inside a single file that you can attach to a Hotmail email message in one go. In other words, emailing a zip file (compressed folder) allows you to send multiple files at the same time, when you are actually attaching a single file to the email. Change the file name or hit Enter to accept it:
Send the zip file (compressed folder) from a Hotmail email message
Now that you have created a single zip file out of an entire folder, it is time to attach it to an email; sign in to Hotmail if needed, and compose a new message. Then, click on the "Attachments" button and find the folder you just compressed into a zip file and select it. Windows Live Hotmail will now attach the entire folder and the files it contains in your email message:
Depending on the number of files you had inside that folder, and the speed of your internet connection, the "uploading" process may take a few minutes, but you will ultimately have attached the folder to your Hotmail email:
Just send the email attachment to one or more people, and you are done! Our Windows 7 Tutorial covers Microsoft' latest consumer operating system in general, but here's a tutorial that directly applies to attaching folders to Hotmail emails: create a zip file in Windows 7 (note that you do not need any kind of special software to compress folders and attach them to email messages).