Running low on hard drive or cloud storage space? Your images might be taking up space they don’t need. A free Mac app called ImageOptim, which I found on App Addict, can quickly reduce the file of any image file without any loss in quality. There’s also a web version for anyone without a Mac.
Using ImageOptim couldn’t be easier: Just drag images to the interface and watch them get smaller.
Credit: Justin Pot
By default, this compression is entirely lossless, meaning there is no loss in quality. This is done using a bunch of different free and open source tools for compressing images— MozJPEG, pngquant, Pngcrush, 7zip, SVGO and Google Zopfli are all built-in, for example. These tools remove redundant information from images, meaning no image quality is lost when you use this tool. If you want the files to be even smaller, there’s support for lossy image compression in the settings.
One thing I love about this application is how it supports a variety of macOS features. There is support for Apple Shortcuts, meaning you could build automations that compress images before sharing them. There’s also support for the Services menu, for example, meaning you can optimize an image by right-clicking it in the Finder, checking the Services menu, and clicking Image Optimize.
Credit: Justin Pot
And there are also privacy benefits. ImageOptim, by default, removes all EXIF data. When you take a picture with your phone, all kinds of information is embedded in the metadata, including your location and the make and model of your camera. ImageOptim removes that, which can protect your personal information.
Overall, this application does one thing and is very efficient at doing that thing. I recommend it if you’ve ever had trouble uploading an image, or just want to free up some space on your hard drive or server.
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