Favorite & Least Favorite
 

I was thinking about this yesterday as I was unzipping my purchases remembering why I hate purchasing new products--I'm SO impatient when it comes to unzipping my products. I'll let you in on a little secret...once upon a time, I would download purchases in a folder and unzip them maybe once or twice a year
https://media.giphy.com/media/91fEJqgdsnu4E/giphy.gif

Then I discovered 7zip and the fact that I could unzip batches of zips with a few button clicks---changed my life!!!
https://media.giphy.com/media/6y5Mt3...CMkO/giphy.gif

Now I unzip them, for the most part, when I get them all downloaded. Yesterday, I was unzipping and I remembered how much I hated this part--even with 7zip!

But once everything is unzipped and I can look at all of the papers and elements.....it's like Heaven on Earth! When I get frustrated unzipping, I always tell myself the best is yet to come.
https://media1.tenor.com/images/55ba...temid=10714138

So tell me, what's your download, unzip thoughts....do you hate unzipping as much as I do? Do you have a better way to unzip everything? Or is downloading what gets under your skin?

What do you look forward to after doing that chore? Looking at the goods? Organizing them in to their folder, tagging them?

https://media.giphy.com/media/6Eo2oYJtS5YtO/giphy.gif

I really don't mind downloading & unzipping. I try to do it all in one day, soon after I've made my purchases. I tried unizp programs, but I seemed to have a challenge with them, so I just do it manually.
It does get a bit more challenging when I've purchased a lot... I try to have a book on hand to read while I'm doing it :)

My program is
ExtractNow......I love being able to put all of my zips in there and let it do it's thing. It doesn't take long, less than 5 mins.

Now organizing all my goodies, after unzipping is what takes me a bit, because I have to put them all in their designer folders and then I go into Bridge and tag them too.

On specials like iNSD, I don't even unzip my purchases until about a day after. and I just use a hour or so and do it all.

I hate it! If I want to use something right away, I unzip it after downloading. If not, I tend to wait and do a lot when I'm frustrated with a page or feel like doing something scrappy other than actual scrapping. I've simplified my organizational system a lot this year, which helped.

I used to have an unzipping program that I used to do a bunch of downloads at once, but isn't made anymore. When that happened I tried others, both free and paid, but they didn't work well and were glitching or freezing frequently. I'm done throwing money away on them. I've resigned myself to just doing them one by one.

Give 7zip a try....use "Extract Here" and it's a breeze. The MAC files take the longest....but the nice thing with 7zip is I'm not having encrypted files with the MAC folders!!

I don't mind even though I do it manually, and I do it right away. I've also renamed almost every piece of paper I've ever bought with a 1 and a space in front to keep them at the front of the folder, so I guess that I like to organize everything.
I will usually then set my preview to full screen and scroll through each item one by one to ogle over them.

My biggest peeve is the downloading part -- I literally took me 2 days to download the items I bought which was only 3 kits. My internet is terrible.

I use 7zip and love it. I unzip immediately just in case a download errors out.

Our internet on post is always awful, so I can relate. I'm nervous about moving back on post because I know we are giving up our decent internet for bad internet again.

And yes, I've been getting in the habit of checking for download errors because I got those a lot with our spotty internet. I've lost a lot of product due to corrupt downloads (thanks to my internet) over the years!

I get frustrated with the downloading, because I can never remember where I am in the downloading! So I have to open my downloads folder, find the kit and then download starting there!

I also get frustrated when I download something, but instead of being in it's own individual folder, the items are all loose! I end up creating a folder before I fully extract the items, and extract them all directly there!

Thanks! I think I've used that one, and it worked well for a while then just...stopped. I can't explain why, but after using it for a while it just wouldn't work anymore. Uninstalling and re-installing bought me a bit of time, then it happened again. Third time it didn't work from the start. It has been a few years since I tried, so maybe one day I'll try again.

That would be frustrating! In my early digi days (2004), we still had dial up. I used to have to set downloads to go overnight and cross my fingers they wouldn't get interrupted. One tiny kit (by today's standards) would literally take all night long!

I don't mind the downloading - my internet connection is pretty decent. Even the unzipping is weirdly relaxing. It's the renaming all the folders that slowly makes me crazy and takes forever. I like all my the pieces of a kit to be in a single folder, so I have to delete all the paper/element/scatter type descriptors so the folders will combine.

I use Unzipthemall - love it :D

I always unzip right away, manually opening each folder. I want the kits ready to use.

I have a Mac, so products just unzip and send the zip file to trash at download without me having to do anything. I don't love organizing everything once it's downloaded, but it really only takes me a minute or two unless it's something like a huge collaboration with a bunch of mini kits. I drag all of the folders into the elements folder, rename the folders with an underscore in front so they are always at the top, save the preview image to my folder and tag the elements folder with the designer/store/type so I can easily filter in the future.

I try to unzip right away just in case there was an issue with the download, but I didn't unzip last week's purchases.

I really hate this part too and can be lazy about it and open when I have time or really need to do it…
I use Winrar but I don't know how to open several at the same time, so I do it one by one and it makes me crazy. lol.
After I reunite all in one folder, choose the main image I rename "folder" and the rename the entire folder with the name of the kit for example. It takes me so much time and really annoy me so I admit, I discover better the kit when it comes to use it.
I'm going to see your 7zip, it really interest me!:)

I just drag what I want from the zipped file and plop it into the kit folder I made. My bigger issue is making sure I only purchase stuff when I have a chance to not only unzip but also tag the folder image (I have a Previews folder and a copy of a kit's preview goes in there) as well as add purchases to my Excel spreadsheet. I don't like leaving stuff in my Downloads folder. In fact, everything from this weekend is already taken care of. Part of the issue is that I don't have BackBlaze set to back up my Downloads folder, which means anything in there would be lost if my computer crashed. And, from a shopping and scrapping standpoint, I want to use what I purchase, which I can't do if it's sitting in my Downloads folder lol.

https://media.giphy.com/media/H6CW8SL6vgVb2/giphy.gif

yes, yes, YES!!!!!!
I thought this was just me!! :D

This is a new one to me! If my 7Zip gives out, I'll be looking at this one. Thanks for the recommendation!!! :thumbup:

hmmmm, now you are making me want a MAC!
https://media1.giphy.com/media/jMusG7sxBqCze/giphy.gif

Yes, this was me....I'd go bonkers sitting there unzipping each and every single one of the downloads.

I never left my stuff in the downloads folder very long either because if my hard drive crashes for my computer, that's my c: drive. So I move it (zips and all) over to another harddrive. Sometimes I'll back it up, zips and all. It's a mess. I wish I were more organized with my backup harddrive!

I have a Mac too, so no unzipping. Yay! I download right away unless I'm traveling and have bad internet. I don't like making a new folder and moving stuff, but it only takes a minute so I shouldn't whine! I too, get confused sometimes downloading if it's a huge collab - I might download 3 or 4 parts at once and then forget where I was in the download process. I want to use my new goodies right away so waiting months would drive me NUTS!!!!

Hahaha, I really think it was only me who feel like this!:D

I have a Mac too, so I don't mind the unzipping part. It's mostly the downloading and organizing stuffs that takes most of my time.

Another reason I love my Mac. Like Sheri said, it does it all for me and I just have to do the organizing, tagging and backing up. I go in spurts with that. I try to keep up but sometimes it sits for weeks. Like right now, my poor sad computer is SO full.

I unzip as soon as everything is downloaded. It makes me twitchy to have zip files just lying around on my hard drive.

After unzipping, I pull the elements folder into the papers folder. I prefer to have an alpha sheet over a folder but both of those get pulled into the papers folder as well. If it's a CT kit, it goes onto my hard drive on the laptop. If it's a non-CT kit, it goes into my "To Be Used" folder on my EHD.