# How to zip files?

**URL:** <https://forums.sketchup.com/t/how-to-zip-files/58767>\
**Category:** Developers\
**Created:** [January 3, 2018, 12:52pm UTC](https://forums.sketchup.com/t/how-to-zip-files/58767 "2018-01-03T12:52:57Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 5

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![DanRathbun](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/sketchup/user_avatar/forums.sketchup.com/danrathbun/32/500_2.png) [@DanRathbun](https://forums.sketchup.com/u/DanRathbun)\
**Post date:** [January 3, 2018, 10:33pm UTC](https://forums.sketchup.com/t/how-to-zip-files/58767/5 "2018-01-03T22:33:10Z")

</div>

> [@eneroth3](#):
>
> Then I switched to just include it inside of my own extension, edited to be under my own namespace. Works like a charm.

Sure it does, and if we all do this it wastes the user’s memory.

The whole point of shared libraries (like gems) is that we all use the same ones.

> [@eneroth3](#):
>
> I first tried installing the Gem on like this but it was incredible slow. For a minute or two SketchUp was completely unresponsive.

A gem install progress bar was logged as an issue I think several years ago.  
(I even attempted to write one.)

We could inform the user that it will take a few minutes to load the gem, … but that usually means a model messagebox, which does not make sense during SketchUp startup (where dependencies like gems are installed.)

So, … it takes a few minutes more the first time an extension loads and installs RubyZip. Thereafter it is no longer an issue.

---

_[View the full topic](https://forums.sketchup.com/t/how-to-zip-files/58767)._
