Kuwait Mac Community

Its late here & I already spent the last 1 hour trying to create this screen cast. It didn't turn out very good but I just didn't want to feel like I wasted all this time for nothing so I just went on with the upload. Today am trying to demonstrate how you can split a file, any type of files into parts and then join the parts together to form the file again.

This demo doesn't require any additional tools, you can do everything from your own Mac, you will only need to use your Terminal (Applications/Utilities) for that. This practice is very useful if you are planning to send a large file to someone, you could also cut a large file into pieces to store it in multiple disks..etc

The screen cast I uploaded into youtube is not very clear specially when the cursor in the Terminal. so, its hard to tell what exactly i was typing which is why It didn't turn out very good.

First, locate a file you want to split and place it into a folder let's say in your desktop and let's assume the folder name is "Files". Then, open up your Terminal and browse to the folder you created on your desktop

 
cd Desktop
cd Files
 

Now, you can run the command

 
split -b 50m filename.avi
 

Where 50m stand for 50MB for each part. If the file size is 300MB its will generate 6 files each will be 50MB, you can set 25m and its will generate 12 files each 25MB and so on. Keep in mind the original file will not be effected by this command. The command will generate files with unique naming sequence so they won't overwrite on another. Now, let's say you want to put the parts together and form a file.

 
cat xaa xab xac xad xae xaf > JoinedFiles.avi
 

or

 
cat x* > JoinedFiles.avi
 

I guess that's it for tonight, have a great weekend every one and feel free to put your questions or comments.

Good night Mac lovers'

Update: The same logic can be used on a linux based machines, look at the here for the same entry on KwtLinux.