Cloud service enabled to handle a set of files depicted to a user as a single file in a native operating system

A folder structure in a user interface 400 to a cloud-based service is represented as a file 402, enabling file actions 406 to be performed on the file representing the folder structure in the user interface to the cloud-based service. The folder structure and associated content is stored on a server which provides the cloud-based service in a compressed file format which is preferably able to preserve the metadata associated with the folder structure which indicates its representation as the file in the user interface. The file actions may be downloading, sending, tagging, moving, copying or deleting. The metadata is preferably set by the native operating system of the file to indicate file representation in the native operating system.