THE SMOL LIBRARY
Guides and comparisons for compressing files on a Mac. Real benchmarks on real hardware, primary sources linked, and every article names the point where Smol stops being the right answer.
117
articles
29
head-to-heads
1123
minutes
START HERE
The best video compressor for Mac depends on the job. Six free and paid options compared on price, privacy and batch support, free built-in method first.
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The same tools, framed around a specific job.
What your host actually meters, Apple and Spotify’s real bitrate and artwork specs, and the cover-art trap that ruins an otherwise good compression pass.
Guide10 min
Court e-filing size caps quoted from the source, keeping a scanned exhibit searchable, and the metadata-removal step almost every instruction gets wrong.
Guide12 min
Real MLS photo limits, quoted from the source: 125 KB at one MLS, 40 MB at another. Plus floor-plan PDFs, video tour rules, and what to resize to.
Guide10 min
Gallery upload limits, print lab specs, and the IPTC copyright fields that disappear when you strip metadata. Plus where Lightroom export is already enough.
Guide11 min
LCP, srcset, and format negotiation for developers. Which image decisions actually move Core Web Vitals, and where a build step beats a desktop app.
Guide11 min
What your files leak, and what stripping them actually removes.
One exiftool process over a folder cleared 90 mixed files in 4 seconds. A shell loop took four times longer. Measured, with the gaps.
Guide9 min
Usually not. ImageMagick, sips and ffmpeg all kept the GPS coordinates. Here is exactly what each tool leaves behind, measured.
Guide8 min
Six routes compared on one test file. Only two leave your pixels untouched. The other four quietly re-encode the image.
Guide12 min
exiftool does not actually delete PDF metadata — one command brings it back. Here is what does, measured on a test document.
Guide10 min
Copy-paste exiftool commands to remove metadata on a Mac from the Terminal, run on macOS 27: keep color, dates and Finder tags, plus the PDF trap.
Guide12 min
GPS lives in three places on a Mac, and removing it from one leaves the other two. Here is where it hides and which platforms actually strip it.
Guide10 min
Image-geolocation models read the pixels, not the metadata. Here is what is actually demonstrated in the literature, and what reduces the risk.
Guide11 min
The best EXIF metadata remover for Mac: ExifCleaner, ExifTool, Smol, Preview, Photos and ImageOptim compared on price, privacy, batch use and limits.
Roundup9 min
EXIF data is the camera and shooting metadata stored inside a photo file. What it holds, how it differs from IPTC and XMP, and which fields identify you.
Guide10 min
Strip it before it leaves your Mac, then check the four things stripping does not fix. A verified pre-flight checklist.
Guide9 min
Compression, conversion, and what Preview quietly does to your files.
Adobe lists Acrobat Pro at US$239.88/yr. If you only need smaller PDFs, $29 once does it. The honest Acrobat alternative for Mac, and when to buy Adobe.
Comparison12 min
Compress multiple PDFs at once on a Mac: a Finder Quick Action, a Ghostscript loop, a Folder Action, or a batch app. Working code and measured timings.
Guide12 min
Compress a PDF for printing and keep 300 PPI, embedded fonts and the right color space. Measured: which presets are safe, which ruin the file.
Guide10 min
Truly lossless PDF compression saved 0.1% to 13.8% in our tests. Here is what "without losing quality" can honestly mean on a Mac, measured.
Guide10 min
Compress a scanned PDF on Mac and keep it searchable. Measured: which tools preserve an OCR text layer, which destroy it, and where readability collapses.
Guide12 min
Compress a PDF on Mac from the Terminal with Ghostscript: one command took a 34.8 MB export to 251,841 bytes. Every command run and measured.
Guide13 min
Convert DOCX to PDF on Mac for free with Pages, Print or one Terminal command. Batch commands included, plus why fonts change the layout. Tested.
Guide9 min
Preview exports one page at a time; an Automator action exports every page. Convert a PDF to JPG on Mac five ways, plus the DPI that gives usable output.
Guide10 min
Preview and sips both turn a PDF into a PNG on Mac, one page at a time. Keep transparency, export crisp 2× files, and fix soft output with DPI math.
Guide9 min
Gmail’s limit is 25 MB, but aim for 18 MB, because encoding adds a third. The real Gmail, Outlook and iCloud limits, and what to do if it still won’t fit.
Guide9 min
How to compress a PDF on Mac: 5 methods tested on the same files. Preview cut a brochure to 5.65 MB but made a text PDF 111.8% bigger. Pick the right one.
Guide14 min
Preview cut a 24.9 MB photo PDF to 3.93 MB in 1.8 seconds, free, no Acrobat needed. Ghostscript and Mac apps tested too; Acrobat Pro is US$239.88 a year.
Guide11 min
To reduce PowerPoint file size on Mac, four measured routes shrank a 39 MB deck. Where the megabytes live and what Compress Pictures really does.
Guide11 min
Looking for a PDF Expert alternative on Mac? See what PDF Expert costs, how its Reduce File Size works, and when a $29 compressor is the better pick.
Comparison8 min
PDF Squeezer is $19.99, on v4.9, and has more PDF controls than we do. The honest PDF Squeezer alternative comparison for Mac, including where it wins.
Comparison9 min
Preview’s Reduce File Size is one fixed Quartz filter: JPEG at 0.70, 144 DPI, 2,400 px ceiling. Why it can fail on a PDF, and how to write your own.
Guide9 min
We ran the same PDFs through seven Mac PDF compressors and measured every byte. Rankings, real output sizes, prices, and what to use for 50 files at once.
Roundup13 min
PDF quality settings explained: image downsampling, JPEG re-encoding, colour conversion, font subsetting, and what Tiny, Small, Medium and Large each change.
Guide10 min
What DPI to compress a PDF to without blurry text: what 300, 150, and 72 DPI really do to body text, measured on four PDFs, plus a preset decision table.
Guide11 min
An InDesign PDF is this large almost always because images sit at camera resolution. What each export preset really does, measured, and how to fix one.
Guide11 min
A PDF too big to upload is nearly always image resolution. Real limits from USCIS, the courts and Common App, plus a measured target-size table.
Guide9 min
Formats, quality, and getting out of HEIC.
Batch convert HEIC to JPG on Mac with one Terminal line: 500 iPhone photos in 39 seconds, no upload. Sips, Automator and Preview compared, plus date traps.
Guide12 min
Automator’s Scale Images action overwrites your originals in place. Build the safe version instead: tested workflow, real plist keys, 100-file timings.
Guide10 min
A tested pre-commit hook, a lint-staged config and a CI image budget check, plus measured proof that deleting a committed asset never shrinks the repo.
Guide11 min
To compress an image on Mac, use Preview, sips, an online tool or a local app. All compared, plus how to pick JPEG, WebP or AVIF and keep photos sharp.
Guide9 min
Convert AVIF to JPG on Mac with one built-in command. Measured: the JPG lands 5.8x larger than the AVIF and scores worse. When to do it anyway.
Guide8 min
Convert HEIC to PNG on Mac in one command. Plus the measurement nobody shows you: a photo turned into PNG is 9.6x larger and not one pixel better.
Guide7 min
Convert JPG to PNG on Mac in one command. Measured: the PNG is 5 to 15 times larger and not one pixel better, because PNG is only lossless going forward.
Guide8 min
Convert PNG to JPG on Mac with Preview, sips or a batch app, plus measured proof of what replaces transparency: white in sips, black in ImageMagick.
Guide8 min
Convert PNG to WebP on Mac. macOS has no WebP encoder, so here are the tools that do, and the saving measured on screenshots, photos and line art.
Guide9 min
Convert TIFF to JPG on Mac with sips or Preview: a 300 dpi scan dropped from 25 MB to 1.8 MB. Why multi-page TIFFs lose pages, and whether colour survives.
Guide8 min
Convert WebP to JPG on Mac with one sips command. Measured: the JPEG comes out 2 to 6 times larger, and an animated WebP quietly loses every frame but one.
Guide8 min
Convert HEIC to JPG on a Mac with Preview, sips, or a Finder Quick Action. Includes a measured quality-versus-size table and what happens to EXIF dates.
Guide7 min
Windows needs an HEVC decoder it does not ship. Here are the free Microsoft Store package, the free apps that bring their own decoder, and what to avoid.
Guide7 min
Image optimization for Core Web Vitals, measured: AVIF vs WebP vs JPEG at equal quality, what one unsized image does to CLS, and the fetchpriority rules.
Guide13 min
The best AI image upscaler for Mac in 2026: Upscayl, Smol, Topaz Gigapixel, Pixelmator Pro and more, with prices and local versus cloud privacy.
Roundup9 min
The best HEIC to JPG converter for Mac is already installed: Preview. Seven free and paid options compared on price, batch support and privacy.
Roundup9 min
Best image compressor for Mac, picked from 10 tools and 6 measured on the same 24 photos. See which to use, what each costs, and where free tools win.
Roundup20 min
The best image converter for Mac depends on batch size and formats. Preview, XnConvert, Smol and three more compared on JPEG, PNG, WebP, AVIF and HEIC.
Roundup10 min
iPhone photos are HEIC because Apple made it the default in iOS 11. Measured, HEIC is 32.3% smaller than JPEG at equal quality, plus the setting to change.
Guide8 min
HEIC won’t open on Windows because it has no HEVC decoder by default, and Microsoft’s costs $0.99. Convert on the Mac first: 50 photos in 2.65 seconds.
Guide7 min
Codecs, bitrate targets and screen recordings.
A one-minute Mac screen recording is 56 MB; one ffmpeg command cut it to 1 MB. See which settings shrink it: resolution, keyframe interval and CRF.
Guide9 min
Discord's free upload cap is 20 MB, Nitro Basic 50 MB, Nitro 500 MB. The bitrate arithmetic that hits a size target on the first try, verified by real encodes.
Guide9 min
Convert GIF to MP4 on Mac with ffmpeg: a 4-second photographic GIF was 8.3 MB, the same frames as H.264 just 260 KB. Plus batch and autoplay HTML.
Guide9 min
Converting MKV to MP4 on Mac is usually a rewrap, not a re-encode. The default command silently drops subtitle tracks; these commands keep them.
Guide9 min
MOV and MP4 are containers. If the codec inside is already H.264 or H.265 you can rewrap in under a second, bit-for-bit identical. Measured on macOS 27.
Guide8 min
Convert MP4 to WebM on Mac with ffmpeg: there is no remux shortcut. Measured VP9 and AV1 sizes at equal quality, plus the Safari catch.
Guide8 min
QuickTime can't open WebM, and a remux to MP4 still won't play. Measured on macOS 27: the re-encodes that work, and the HEVC tag trap.
Guide8 min
H.265 vs H.264, measured: H.265 saved 3% on a calm clip and 30% on a busy one, cost 1.7x the CPU, and plays fully on fewer browsers. When to pick each.
Guide8 min
Batch compress videos on Mac with an ffmpeg loop, HandBrake’s queue, the hardware encoder, or a drop-in app. Same settings on each, and what differed.
Guide9 min
Compress 4K video on Mac: the Apple Silicon media engine ran 6 to 9 times faster than software encoding but made larger, lower-quality files.
Guide8 min
How to compress a video on Mac with QuickTime Export As, ffmpeg, HandBrake or a native app, all measured on one file: real sizes, timings and VMAF.
Guide13 min
To compress video for email, aim for 15 MB, not 25, because encoding overhead eats a third of the limit. Resolution advice and when to use Mail Drop.
Guide8 min
What "without losing quality" can and cannot mean for video, the four levers that change file size, and when remuxing beats re-encoding. Measured on a Mac.
Guide10 min
The best video compressor for Mac depends on the job. Six free and paid options compared on price, privacy and batch support, free built-in method first.
Roundup9 min
Bitrate, batch conversion, and what happens to your album art.
Audio bitrate is the bits per second a file spends on sound. CBR vs ABR vs VBR measured, why 128 kbps MP3 and Opus differ, and what bitrates cost in bytes.
Guide10 min
AAC at 48 kbps mono made a 22 MB episode; MP3 at 128 kbps stereo made 58 MB. Measured mono, sample rate and bitrate, plus the -16 LUFS loudness target.
Guide11 min
Convert FLAC to MP3 on Mac with the one ffmpeg flag that keeps your album art. Measured across every route, including the tools that delete the covers.
Guide9 min
Convert M4A to MP3 on Mac free with the Music app. Measured: which routes keep your tags and album art, and the built-in tool that cannot write MP3.
Guide8 min
Convert WAV to MP3 on Mac for free in the Music app or with ffmpeg. Measured file sizes for every quality setting, plus VBR versus CBR explained.
Guide8 min
Batch convert audio files on Mac with Music, afconvert or ffmpeg. Measured on 14 tagged files: speed, output size, and which routes destroy your tags.
Guide10 min
Compress an audio file on Mac free with the Music app, afconvert or ffmpeg. Measured sizes across four codecs and six bitrates, and how to pick one.
Guide9 min
Best audio converter for Mac depends on your files. Compare the Music app, MediaHuman, ffmpeg, Smol, XLD, Permute and fre:ac on price, batch and privacy.
Roundup8 min
Terminal, Automator, Quick Actions and build pipelines.
Build a compression Quick Action in Automator with working code, find where Quick Actions live on disk, and remove one cleanly. Tested on macOS 27.
Guide9 min
A complete reference of the image, PDF, document, spreadsheet, video, audio, table and font formats Smol reads and writes on macOS, including what it cannot do.
Guide7 min
The best file converter app for Mac depends on what you convert. Six tools compared on formats, price, batch support and whether your files leave your Mac.
Roundup9 min
A measured sips command reference for macOS: resize, convert, quality values, ICC, metadata, and the flags that silently do nothing. Every example was run.
Guide13 min
Make a Mac folder compress images the moment they land: a tested Folder Action script, the re-trigger loop that breaks most tutorials, and real latencies.
Guide9 min
Honest head-to-heads, including where the other tool wins.
Adobe Media Encoder alternative for Mac: Smol compresses video locally for $29 once, no Creative Cloud. See what you give up and where Adobe wins.
Comparison8 min
Looking for an Apple Compressor alternative on Mac? See where Apple’s $49.99 encoder wins, and when a $29 compressor for video, PDFs and images is enough.
Comparison8 min
Caesium is free, open source and still shipping: its engine released v1.5.0 on 16 Sep 2026. The honest Caesium alternative comparison for Mac users.
Comparison9 min
Clop is €15, open source and updated weekly. The honest Clop alternative comparison for Mac: what its encoder list does not include, and when to stay put.
Comparison10 min
CloudConvert handles 212 formats and needs no Mac. It also meters you and needs the upload. The honest CloudConvert alternative comparison for local work.
Comparison10 min
Compresto is $49 for one Mac and genuinely good at video. The honest Compresto alternative comparison: AVIF, audio, Ghostscript, and what each app refuses.
Comparison11 min
Looking for a FreeConvert alternative on Mac? Smol converts and compresses images, PDFs, video and audio on your Mac for $29 once, with no uploads.
Comparison8 min
HandBrake is free, actively maintained, and hard to configure. The HandBrake alternatives for Mac worth using when you just want a smaller video file.
Comparison12 min
Looking for an iLoveIMG alternative on Mac? Compare its free web tools and $4 Premium with a $29 app that never uploads your files. Honest verdict.
Comparison8 min
iLovePDF's free Compress tool takes 2 files per task, 200 MB max, and Premium is $48/yr. Is iLovePDF free enough, or is a $29 one-time Mac app better?
Comparison9 min
JPEGmini is $59 and brilliant at JPEG. It writes only JPEG. The honest JPEGmini alternative comparison for Mac: formats, price, trials and where it still wins.
Comparison10 min
Optimage's last release was 26 Nov 2021 and its binaries are Intel-only. Apple ends Rosetta after macOS 27. The Optimage alternatives that run natively.
Comparison9 min
Looking for a PDFelement alternative on Mac? Smol compresses PDFs, images, video and audio offline for $29 once. See what PDFelement does that Smol cannot.
Comparison8 min
A fair Permute alternative comparison: Permute 4 costs $14.99 and needs macOS 26. Where it beats Smol, where Smol fits better, and who should buy which.
Comparison9 min
Picmal and Smol are both $29 once. An honest Picmal alternative comparison: macOS 15, format breadth, Office files, upscaling, and who should buy which.
Comparison10 min
A ShortPixel alternative for Mac that compresses locally, with no credits or uploads. See where ShortPixel wins, such as WordPress, and where Smol fits.
Comparison9 min
ShrinkIt is a free Mac video compressor with a $14.99 Pro. See what it does well and what to use if you also need to compress images, PDFs or audio.
Comparison8 min
Smallpdf Pro is $108/yr and its Mac desktop app has been unsupported since 2021. The Smallpdf alternatives that run locally on a Mac, with real prices.
Comparison10 min
Dinky is free, MIT-licensed and 35 MB. Smol is $29 and 403 MB. An honest Smol vs Dinky comparison, including the four rows their table gets wrong.
Comparison11 min
TinyPNG compresses images in the cloud with a 5 MB free limit. Smol runs unlimited compression locally on your Mac for a one-time $29. Full comparison.
Comparison7 min
Smolr is a free open-source image compressor. Smol is a $29 Mac app for images, PDFs, video and audio. Two different apps; here is which one you want.
Comparison9 min
Looking for a Squash alternative on Mac? Squash 3 is a batch photo editor with filters. Smol compresses images, PDFs, video and audio for $29 once.
Comparison8 min
Squoosh still works, but no maintainer has shipped code since August 2024 and it has never had a batch mode. The Squoosh alternatives worth using on a Mac.
Comparison11 min
Topaz ended perpetual licenses in 2025 and Adobe closed its acquisition in September 2026. The Topaz Gigapixel alternatives worth using on a Mac.
Comparison10 min
XnConvert is free and reads 500+ image formats. Looking for an XnConvert alternative on Mac that also handles PDF, video and audio? Compare honestly.
Comparison8 min
Zipic is free for 25 images a day, $19.99 for Pro. An honest Zipic alternative comparison: formats, automation, the MCP server, and what it will not touch.
Comparison11 min
Everything else.
Every CSV value is a string. Type inference is where conversions break, along with the jq recipe everyone copies. Measured on macOS 27 with the commands that work.
Guide10 min
Convert TTF to WOFF2 in one command. Measured: the format change saves 68%, subsetting to Latin saves another 87%, and one of those is the real win.
Guide9 min
A three-sheet workbook becomes one CSV. Formulas become values. Leading zeros vanish on re-import. Every trap measured on macOS 27, with the flags that fix them.
Guide10 min
HandBrake vs QuickTime for compressing video on a Mac, with Smol as a third option: price, control, batch support and sizes from one measured clip.
Roundup9 min
In our 23.75 MB test document, pictures were 99.9% of the bytes. How to compress pictures in Word on Mac, plus three other measured ways to shrink it.
Guide9 min
Smallpdf vs iLovePDF compared on price, free limits and privacy as of October 2026, plus a local Mac option for files you would rather not upload.
Roundup8 min
Smol vs ImageOptim on 24 photos: ImageOptim is free and faster on JPEG, Smol writes AVIF and WebP and handles PDF, video and audio. Measured results.
Roundup8 min
VLC can convert video on a Mac, but it is a player first. Compare VLC, QuickTime, HandBrake, Smol and Permute for converting video, free and paid.
Roundup10 min
EVERY BYTE EARNS ITS PLACE
Images, PDFs, video and audio. Compressed and converted on your Mac, with nothing uploaded. One purchase, $29.
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