Changelog

Picmal has made app icons for a while — now it reads them back. Drop an .icns in and you get every size it holds as a separate image. This release also fixes a big one: converting to WebP could leave you with a larger file than you started with.

New features

• Convert Apple icon files. Drop an .icns in and turn it into PNG, JPG, or whatever else you need. An icon file holds several sizes at once, so each one becomes its own file saved next to the original — icon-1024x1024.png, icon-512x512.png, and so on. Works in the app and from the terminal with picmal-cli convert. See Converting files.

Bug fixes

• Fixed WebP conversions bloating the file. With compression turned off, Picmal was encoding WebP — along with AVIF, HEIC, and other lossy formats — at full quality, so a 355 KB JPEG could balloon past 1 MB. It now converts at a visually lossless quality that stays well under the original. Same fix for clipboard optimization.
• Fixed the Saving percentage getting stuck at 0%. Re-running a file with Again, or switching its output format, could leave the Saving column reading 0% even when the file did get smaller. It now compares against your original file every time.

Two new tools land in the sidebar this release. Vectorize traces a PNG or JPG into a real SVG — actual paths, not a bitmap in disguise — and Remove Background lifts the subject out of a photo onto a transparent PNG. Both run entirely on your Mac, nothing gets uploaded, and both handle a whole batch at once.

New features

• Vectorize turns images into real SVG vectors. Drop a batch of PNGs, JPGs, GIFs, or WebPs, pick a style per image — Logo, Photo, or B&W — and trace them all at once. You get true traced paths, not a bitmap wrapped in an SVG, so it shines on logos, icons, and flat art. See Vectorize.
• Remove Background cuts the subject out onto a transparent PNG. Drop an image and Picmal finds the foreground and drops the rest to transparent — all on-device, nothing uploaded. It works in the app, in Shortcuts, and from the terminal with picmal-cli remove-background. See Remove Background.

Improvements

• Convert-with-compression makes smaller files. When you convert with compression turned on, Picmal now runs the same optimized encoders it uses in Compress mode, so JPEGs, PNGs, and GIFs come out smaller. Formats like BMP, JP2, and JXL that used to pass through untouched now get compressed too. See Converting files.

Bug fixes

• Fixed a crash when converting a damaged HEIC photo. A corrupt or truncated HEIC in a big batch could take the whole app down partway through. Now Picmal skips the bad file, marks it as failed, and finishes the rest of the batch.

Big videos can now come out smaller by resolution, not just codec: a new Resolution setting downscales 4K footage to 1080p or 720p on the way through. And the App Icons tool can round your image into a proper macOS tile instead of filling the square edge to edge.

New features

• Cap a video to a resolution. Video Options gains a Resolution setting — 2160p (4K), 1440p, 1080p, 720p, 480p, 360p, or Original. Picmal only ever scales down and keeps the aspect ratio, so a source that’s already smaller than your pick is left untouched. Applies to both Convert and Compress. See Audio and video.

Improvements

• App icons can take on a real macOS shape. The App Icons tool can now round your image into a proper macOS tile — a Big Sur squircle or the rounder Tahoe corner — with the margin and soft shadow baked in, instead of filling the square edge to edge. Pick the shape (or None) next to the format checkboxes; it applies to the .icns. See App Icons.

The sidebar gains a new tool: App Icons. Drop in one image and Picmal hands you back ready-to-ship app icons for every platform — no export presets to fiddle with.

New features

• App Icons. Give Picmal a single image and it generates a macOS .icns, a Windows .ico, and an iOS icon set you can drag straight into Xcode. Pick which formats you want. A non-square image is fit into the square without cropping, and the iOS icon is flattened onto an opaque background so the App Store accepts it. Like the rest of Picmal it runs entirely on your Mac, and works from the command line (picmal-cli app-icon) and Shortcuts. See App Icons.

Improvements

• Soft subtitles now survive compression and conversion. Videos that already carry subtitle tracks — the soft subs Subler adds, say — used to lose them every time Picmal re-encoded the file. They now come along for the ride, as long as the output format can hold them: text subtitles into MP4, MOV, and WebM, and anything into MKV. A subtitle the target format can’t store is quietly dropped so the conversion still goes through. Works in the app and from the command line.
• A self-serve portal for your license. Lost your key, or need to free up a device? The License tab now links straight to a portal that emails you a sign-in link, then lets you recover your key, move seats between machines, and manage renewals. Your license also verifies offline now, so Picmal stays activated on a flaky connection or a plane. Existing licenses carry over on their own — nothing to re-enter. See License.

The sidebar’s Media section gains a new tool: Combine Videos. Drop in a few clips, put them in order, and get one video back.

New features

• Combine Videos. Drop in two or more videos, drag them into the order you want, and join them into a single file. When every clip already shares the same codec, resolution, and frame rate, Picmal copies the streams together untouched — no re-encoding, no quality loss. Mix formats or sizes and it scales each clip onto the first one’s frame and re-encodes to match. Pick the output format from Video Options, or leave it matching the first file, and name the result there too. Like the rest of Picmal it runs entirely on your Mac, and works from the command line (picmal-cli combine-videos) and Shortcuts. See Video tools.

Bug fixes

• Fixed transparent images turning black when converted to JPEG. JPEG can’t store transparency, so a see-through PNG (or WebP, GIF, HEIC…) used to fill its transparent areas with black. They now fill with white, matching how Picmal already handled PDF. Works in the app and from the command line.

Picmal’s Audio tools grow up around audiobooks. You can convert M4B files while keeping their chapters and cover art, break a long book into one file per chapter, and turn a folder of loose tracks into a single audiobook that scrubs by chapter in Books, Music, or QuickTime.

New features

• Audiobook conversion (M4B). M4B audiobooks now convert to and from M4A and MP3, both in the app and from the command line. Chapters and cover art come along for the ride — even MP3 keeps its chapter markers. See Supported formats.
• Split by Chapter. A new Audio tool: drop a chaptered audiobook, see its chapters listed, and break it into one file per chapter — each named Book - 01 - Chapter Title and tagged with its title and track number. Keep the original format or convert as you go. Also from the command line: picmal-cli split-chapters book.m4b --format mp3. See Audio tools and Command line.

• Merge Audio into a chaptered M4B. Merge Audio can now output M4B and turn each file you add into its own chapter, named after the file. Pick M4B in Audio Options, tick Add chapter markers, and the per-chapter files you get out of Audible or Libation become one audiobook that scrubs by chapter.

Bug fixes

• Fixed Picmal asking to “access data from other apps” on every launch. Your watched-folders list was stored in a shared system location that macOS treats as another app’s data. It now lives in Picmal’s own folder — the prompt is gone and your existing watched folders carry over untouched.

The PDF section gains a fourth tool for tidying up documents, and color space picks up two new targets for print and black-and-white work.

New features

• Organize Pages. A new PDF tool for reordering and deleting pages. Drop in a PDF and its pages show up as a thumbnail list — drag to reorder, delete the ones you don’t need, and click any thumbnail to preview it full-size. Save when the order looks right. App only for now. See PDF tools.
• Grayscale and CMYK color spaces. Two new targets join the RGB profiles when you set a color space: Grayscale for clean black-and-white output, and CMYK — through Picmal’s bundled color profiles — for print-ready files. Both work in the app and from the command line (--color-space cmyk). See Command line.

Improvements

• Hardened image and PDF processing against malicious files. ImageMagick’s security policy now blocks risky script and URL-fetching coders, and Ghostscript’s sandbox permissions are trimmed down to just what it needs. Copyright and artist metadata you set are also sanitized before they’re written to a file.

Bug fixes

• Fixed PDF compression hanging indefinitely on complex files that produced a lot of Ghostscript warnings.
• Fixed images and PDF pages sometimes rendering a pixel smaller than expected — scaled dimensions were truncated instead of rounded, which in rare cases could even skip a page.
• Fixed watched folder file size filters using 1024-based kilobytes while the rest of Picmal uses 1000-based ones.

The sidebar gains an Audio section with its first tool: Merge Audio. Drop in a few tracks, put them in order, and get one file back.

New features

• Merge Audio. Drop in two or more audio files, drag them into the order you want, and join them into a single track. When every file already shares the same format, Picmal copies the streams together untouched — no re-encoding, no quality loss. Mix formats and it re-encodes to match. Pick the output format from Audio Options, or leave it matching the first file, and name the result there too. Like the rest of Picmal it runs entirely on your Mac, and works from the command line (picmal-cli merge-audio), Shortcuts, and Raycast. See Audio tools.

Bug fixes

• Fixed Convert and Compress dropping extra audio tracks from videos. They kept only the single track ffmpeg picked by default, so commentary and alternate-language tracks quietly disappeared. Every audio track now carries through to the output.

The PDF section gains a third tool: Split PDF. Pull one document apart into several by page range — the natural counterpart to Combine PDFs.

New features

• Split PDF. Drop a PDF in, type the page ranges you want — 1-3, 5, 8- — and each range becomes its own file, saved next to the original. Leave the field blank to split every page into a separate PDF. Like the other PDF tools, it runs entirely on your Mac and works from the command line (picmal-cli split-pdf), Shortcuts, and Raycast.

Bug fixes

• Fixed the Remove Metadata option in the Compress shortcut not actually stripping metadata. The step ran but couldn’t read your settings, so it quietly did nothing — and if a file was already small enough that Picmal skipped compression, the original came back untouched, GPS and all. Both are fixed. See Integrations.

A round of stability fixes across audio, video, and the Shortcuts integration — plus a couple of crash fixes that show up most on Intel Macs and in large batches.

Bug fixes

• Fixed Opus conversions failing at high bitrates. Asking for 320 kbps always errored out because Opus tops out at 256 kbps — it now quietly clamps to 256 kbps instead of aborting.
• Fixed a crash when many files failed at once. In large batches on Intel Macs, rapid back-to-back failures could trigger a crash. A race condition in the error reporting was to blame.
• Fixed Remove Metadata in the Shortcuts action not actually stripping metadata. The setting was passed in correctly but dropped before it reached the step that does the work, so GPS and EXIF data stayed in the file no matter what you set. See Integrations.
• Fixed iPhone Live Photos and other .mov files with bad timestamps failing to convert. Some videos carry timestamps that confuse the muxer part way through, aborting the conversion. Picmal now catches that and retries with the timestamps corrected.
• Fixed a crash when an image conversion process was killed mid-read. Capturing output from a conversion process could raise an unrecoverable error if it was interrupted during a large batch — it now uses the same safe reading approach as the rest of the app.

A few rough edges smoothed over: a runaway popover, a misleading Intel error message, and a file list that crept into the title bar.

Bug fixes

• Fixed the error detail popover ballooning to full screen. On wide displays it could stretch to fill the window — it now wraps at a comfortable width.
• Fixed Intel tool-launch failures showing up as a misleading “path issue”. A dynamic library error, common on Intel or under Rosetta, was getting swept into a generic message. You now see the real error instead.
• Fixed the file list bleeding into the title bar on macOS 15. Rows could scroll up behind the traffic-light buttons — the title bar area now stays clean and matches the list.

Changing a video’s container is now near-instant, mixed batches move faster, and PNG, WebP, and AVIF all squeeze out a few extra percent.

Improvements

• Container swaps are near-instant. Switching a video’s container while keeping the same codec — MOV to MP4, MP4 to MKV, and so on — now copies the stream straight across instead of re-encoding it. Even with a video preset active, a 5-second clip finishes in well under a second instead of 20-plus.
• Mixed image and video batches are faster. When images and videos run side by side, image jobs now leave a couple of CPU cores free for video. Before, the image pool grabbed everything and video conversions slowed to a crawl.
• Tighter PNG compression at Max Compression. Level 9 now runs Zopfli on smaller files — a slower but stronger compressor that finds a few extra percent without touching quality.
• WebP works harder on bigger files. Picmal runs two encodes and keeps whichever comes out smaller. That now covers files up to 10 MB, up from 4 MB.
• Smaller AVIF at aggressive quality settings. Pick a low quality preset and the encoder digs in a little harder, shaving a few percent off without any visible change.

Bug fixes

• Fixed a target frame rate above the source inflating the file. Picmal was duplicating frames to hit the target, which made files bigger and encodes slower for no visual gain. The target now only kicks in when it actually lowers the rate — set 48 fps on a 25 fps clip and the output stays at 25.
• Fixed the “Saving” estimate showing in plain Convert mode. It was sample-encoding video behind the scenes even when nothing would be compressed, then showing a misleading saving percentage in the file list. It now only runs in Compress mode or when “Compress after convert” is on.

A handful of fixes to make Picmal’s status labels honest and to clean up some light-mode rough edges on macOS 26.

Improvements

• Unsupported formats now say “Not supported.” Files that can’t be compressed — like RAW or DNG — used to land in the same red “Failed” state as a real error, complete with an error popover. Now they show a plain “Not supported,” so it’s clear this is a format limitation, not something that went wrong.
• Re-added output files now say “Skipped.” Drop in a folder that already holds compressed files from an earlier run and those files get picked up as inputs. They used to sit on “Waiting” doing nothing, with no explanation. Now they show “Skipped,” with a tooltip telling you another file in the batch is already writing to that name.
• A roomier schedule sheet. It’s a little wider with more breathing room, so the text wraps less awkwardly.

Bug fixes

• Fixed the bottom-bar buttons disappearing in light mode on macOS 26. Clear, Again, Cancel, and Convert/Compress all vanished against the light toolbar — a tint override was rendering the Liquid Glass look invisible on light backgrounds.
• Fixed the format picker vanishing when you selected a row. Clicking a file in the list turned the format picker into a blank white box, because the text was rendering white-on-white over the blue selection. The label now stays legible whether the row is selected or not.

Picmal has a new sidebar. Convert and Compress now live under Media, and a new PDF section adds two tools for working with documents — all still running entirely on your Mac.

New features

• A redesigned sidebar. Picmal’s tools moved to the side, grouped into Media (Convert, Compress) and PDF (Combine PDFs, Images to PDF), with Settings at the bottom and the title bar gone — so there’s room to grow beyond converting and compressing.
• Combine PDFs. Drop in several PDFs, drag to reorder them, and merge everything into one document. Name the output in PDF Options or leave it blank for an automatic name. The combined PDF is saved next to the first file and never overwrites anything.
• Images to PDF. Turn a batch of images into a single PDF, one image per page. Drag to set the page order, pick a page size (Fit to Image, A4, US Letter, or a custom size in millimeters), set the image quality, add an optional password, and name the output file. Sideways phone photos come out upright.
• PDF tools work everywhere. Both run from the Finder right-click menu, the Shortcuts app, and the command line (picmal-cli combine and picmal-cli images-to-pdf). You get a notification when the PDF is ready, just like Convert and Compress.
• Custom metadata control. On top of strip-all, keep-essential, and keep-all, a new Custom mode lets you choose exactly which categories to keep — location (GPS), camera & exposure, date & time, copyright & author, color profile, orientation, serial & owner IDs, and the embedded thumbnail — each on its own. The command line gains matching --keep and --strip flags.

Improvements

• A fresh coat of Liquid Glass. The bottom bar, the clipboard overlay, and the license banner now use macOS’s Liquid Glass look, so they sit more naturally over whatever’s behind them.
• Combining PDFs now reports a clear error if a page can’t be read, instead of quietly leaving it out of the merged file.

Bug fixes

• Fixed resizing and compressing in one go producing bloated files. When an image was both resized and compressed — in Compress mode or a watched folder — the resize step quietly undid the optimization. The output is now optimized properly, matching a separate resize-then-compress pass.
• Fixed converted photos coming out sideways. Portrait shots from your iPhone (and any photo that relies on a rotation tag) were being flipped to landscape on convert. Picmal now rotates the pixels upright, the Orientation setting in Settings → Images does what it says, and the command line rotates correctly too.
• Fixed conversions and compressions that could freeze or stall. A quick one-off job could hang right as it finished, and big batches could get stuck partway. The heavy PDF, SVG, and image work now runs to the side, so the app stays responsive and files keep moving.
• Fixed some audio failing to convert to OGG. Converting to OGG (Vorbis) could fail with an “encoder setup failed” error, most often on lower-sample-rate files like 22 kHz MP3s. Picmal now sets the Vorbis quality directly instead of a target bitrate, so these conversions go through.
• Fixed a crash when removing files with the Delete key. Deleting selected rows from the keyboard while the list was updating could bring the app down. Deletions now wait for the list to settle, the same way the right-click Remove already did.

Fixed a crash that could strike mid-run when the file list was busy reshuffling itself. Rows now hold their place while they process and only move when a file finishes or you change its priority, so a big batch stays steady on screen instead of jumping around underneath you.

The video speed control is clearer too. Custom speed now takes a plain multiplier (type 5 for 5×, up to 8×) instead of a confusing percentage. And the Delete key now edits the speed field properly rather than removing the file from the list.

We also fixed a rare crash inside Picmal’s own crash reporting, where tidying up an error report could itself bring the app down instead of just quietly logging it. Alongside that, we updated the crash-reporting library and brought the command line tool in line with the app, so both report problems the same way under the hood.

Compress images to a target file size. Pick “Max File Size” in the resize settings, type a size (say 100 KB or 2 MB), and Picmal scales each image down just enough to fit. It works in Convert, Compress, watched folders, and the command line — picmal-cli convert -i photo.jpg -f jpg --resize 100kB.

Image compression is better across the board. JPEGs use optimised Huffman coding and a higher-precision transform, with full colour detail kept at the top quality settings. AVIF and JPEG XL come out tighter, GIF frame optimisation is smarter, and WebP now keeps the smaller of two encodings for still images.

Picmal never hands you a file bigger than the original when compressing. If a compression pass wouldn’t save space, your original is kept untouched — now everywhere, including when you compress straight after converting.

Add your own copyright and ownership to every image. Fill in the new Copyright & ownership fields in Settings → General — copyright notice, artist, credit, and contact — and Picmal stamps them into each exported photo across EXIF, IPTC, and XMP. You only enter them once: they’re saved as your default and reused on every export, with a switch to turn them on or off without clearing the fields. It even works when you’re stripping metadata — your camera and location data come off, but your copyright stays on. There are matching --copyright, --artist, --credit, and --contact flags for picmal-cli convert and compress too.

Check what metadata actually made it into a file. The ⓘ button next to a finished file now has an Original / Result switch and opens on Result, so you can confirm at a glance that your copyright landed and your camera and location data came off. It shows up even when the original had no metadata, so copyright you added is always verifiable. The metadata setting also spells out its trade-off as you pick it, so stripping never surprises you.

Video conversion and compression are faster, especially on powerful Macs with lots of cores. Picmal now runs a few video encodes side by side instead of starving them all, gives each one a proper share of the CPU, and AV1 output is 20–40× quicker. Watched-folder and clipboard jobs run quietly in the background so they don’t slow down whatever you’re doing.

The Finder right-click Convert and Compress options now run reliably even when Picmal is closed. They process quietly in the background without pulling focus from Finder, with a notification showing what Picmal is working on and the progress as it goes (so a long file doesn’t look stuck), honour your “Save to subfolder” setting, and let you know when a selection has nothing Picmal can convert instead of just flashing open and closing. The Services menu items are now grouped together as “Picmal — Add Files”, “Picmal — Convert” and “Picmal — Compress”.

Two new audio formats you can convert to and compress: EAC3 (Dolby Digital Plus) and MKA (Matroska audio). You can also open many more audio files to convert from — Monkey’s Audio (APE), Musepack (MPC), TAK, DSD (DSF), Shorten (SHN), AMR and GSM. These are read-only, so you can convert them to any other format, but Picmal won’t write them back out.

On the video side, there’s a new format you can convert to and compress: 3G2 (3GPP2 mobile video). And you can open more video files to convert from too — RealMedia (RM, RMVB), Bink (BIK), FLIC animation (FLI, FLC), Nullsoft Streaming Video (NSV) and Dahua CCTV (DAV). These are read-only as well, so they convert out to any other format but Picmal won’t write them.

We also fixed reopening Picmal sometimes bringing up the Settings window instead of the main window.

Finally, conversions started from the Finder right-click menu no longer stall when Picmal launches in the background. They now run straight away, and a licence check no longer fires twice on launch.

Large and animated WebPs convert and compress much faster again. They no longer fail with an out-of-memory error or stall for minutes — a single big file now uses all your CPU cores and gets the memory it needs, while batches still run many files side by side.

Lots of new image formats you can convert to: HDR (Radiance), DPX and Cineon (film), FITS (astronomy), Photoshop Large (PSB), Pyramid TIFF, PAM, PFM, PHM, MIFF, VIPS, AVS, multi-page PCX (DCX), MATLAB (MAT), VICAR, Animated PNG (APNG), MNG, JNG, Farbfeld, Sun Raster, Palm Pixmap and Database, Wireless Bitmap (WBMP), Group 3 FAX, Sixel, Khoros VIFF and WordPerfect Graphics (WPG).

You can now open many more camera RAW files: Olympus (ORF), Panasonic (RW2), Pentax (PEF), Samsung (SRW), newer Canon (CR3, CRW), Hasselblad (3FR, FFF), Phase One (IIQ), Sigma (X3F), Leica (RWL), Sony (SR2, SRF), Kodak (DCR, KDC, K25), Epson (ERF), Mamiya (MEF), Minolta (MRW, MDC) and Nikon (NRW) — with your camera metadata kept. GIMP (XCF), OpenRaster (ORA), DICOM, Kodak Photo CD and Ultra HDR files open too.

The output format picker is now grouped (Common, Raster, RAW, Scientific, Legacy) and searchable, so the longer list stays easy to navigate. All the new formats are available in the Shortcuts app as well.

The Finder right-click “Convert with Picmal” and “Compress with Picmal” options now run the conversion or compression straight away, instead of just adding the files to the window. A new “Add to Picmal” option keeps the old behaviour for when you just want to drop files in without processing them.

Fixed audio and video conversion in the picmal-cli command line tool. It used to hang forever when run directly in a Terminal; now those jobs run and finish like any other.

Fixed HEVC (H.265) video conversion failing on Macs with lots of CPU cores, like the iMac Pro and Mac Pro. The software encoder was asking for more threads than it allows and refused to start.

When the hardware video encoder chokes on a tricky clip — for example 10-bit footage with a timecode track — Picmal now automatically retries in software instead of giving up, so the conversion still finishes.

Fixed a crash when a scheduled batch started while you had files selected in the list.

Picmal now has a command line tool. Convert and compress images, audio, and video straight from the Terminal, using the same engines as the app. Run picmal-cli convert -i photo.heic -f jpg, picmal-cli compress -i big.png --quality 70, or picmal-cli watch to monitor a folder. It supports presets, resizing, metadata stripping, color space and DPI options, and watermarks, and outputs NDJSON when you pipe it into other tools. It uses your existing Picmal license. See the CLI docs for the full reference.

Zoom in and out in the Before/After window to inspect fine compression detail. Pinch on the trackpad, use the new +, −, and 100% controls in the corner, or press ⌘+, ⌘−, ⌘0. Drag to pan while zoomed; the slider handle still moves the divider at any zoom level. Double-click to reset.

Fixed the Finder right-click “Convert with Picmal” and “Compress with Picmal” options doing nothing. The window now comes to the front and the files land in the list, whether Picmal was closed, already running, or hidden in the menu bar.

Fixed batch conversions failing with a temporary-file error when “Save to subfolder” was on. The output subfolder is now created up front, and if a destination really can’t be written to, only those files are marked failed instead of crashing the whole batch.

Embed album art into audio automatically. Turn on “Embed cover art from the source folder” in Settings → Audio and Picmal looks for a cover image next to each track (cover.jpg, folder.jpg, front.jpg, all editable) and adds it to MP3, M4A, ALAC and FLAC output. “Skip files that already have artwork” keeps any existing cover instead of replacing it.

See how much space you saved after compressing. When a batch finishes, the bottom bar and the completion notification show the total freed space with a playful comparison, like “Freed up 9.66 GB · about a 4K movie 🎬”.

Schedule a batch for later. Tap the clock button next to Convert (or Compress) to pick a start time, handy for running big jobs overnight. The bottom bar shows what’s queued, you get a notification when it finishes, and schedules survive quitting and reopening Picmal.

Converting RAW photos (NEF, CR2, ARW, RAF, DNG) now keeps your camera metadata. With “Keep all metadata” the output JPEG carries the make, model, lens, exposure, date and GPS. “Keep essential” keeps the basics while dropping location and serial numbers. The metadata indicator now reads RAW files too, so it no longer shows them as empty.

See an estimate of a video’s compressed size before you run it, so you know roughly how much space you’ll save.

Set a priority on any file. Right-click and pick High, Normal or Low, and high-priority files get processed first, even mid-batch.

Pause and resume a running batch. Pause now stops files mid-conversion too, not just the ones still waiting.

Right-click any file to show it in Finder, set its priority, or remove it from the list. The old “File” column is gone, since Show in Finder now lives in the menu.

ALAC (Apple Lossless) conversions are now truly lossless. Converting FLAC to ALAC used to produce a smaller, lossy AAC file by mistake.

Fixed Adobe RGB conversions failing on macOS 26 with an “UnrecognizedColorspace” error. Picmal now resolves ICC profiles across macOS versions and skips color conversion cleanly when a profile is genuinely missing, instead of failing the whole batch.

Old FLV videos with mono Speex audio now convert instead of failing at the end with an encoder error.

Big batches no longer stall on the last file or two. If an image encoder gets stuck, Picmal kills it and retries within about 15 seconds.

The file list scrolls smoothly while processing, and the “X of Y files compressed” count no longer freezes just short of the total.

PDF compression never hands you a file bigger than the original. If it wouldn’t save space, Picmal keeps your original.

Cancelling a batch now stops quickly and tidies up, so interrupted files return to “Waiting” instead of looking stuck.

Other smaller fixes and improvements.

Watermarks were sometimes skipped on a few files in a batch. Fixed. Every image gets the watermark now.

Watermarks can scale to a percentage of each image’s height, so one preset looks right across photos of any size. Turn on “Scale to image” in the watermark editor and drag the slider.

“Keep all metadata” was quietly dropping some tags. It actually keeps everything now.

PDF to JPG/PNG no longer dumps huge files on you. Pick the rasterization DPI in Settings → Images (72, 150, 300 or 600). Default is 150.

Drag-and-drop used to silently cap at 100 files. You can now drop up to 10,000 in one go and they all land in the list.

Audio conversions now let you pick a bit depth (16, 24 or 32 bit) on top of the sample rate. The new “CD quality” preset is 16 bit + 44.1 kHz FLAC.

Picking Display P3, Adobe RGB, ProPhoto RGB, Rec. 709 or Rec. 2020 as the output color space used to fail outright. Only sRGB worked. Fixed.

Added support for converting MOD camcorder videos (JVC, Canon, Panasonic) to MP4, MOV, AVI, MKV, MPG, and GIF.

Fixed the crash some Intel Mac users were hitting on launch. If 1.5.5 wouldn’t open for you, this build should.

Save your own custom compression presets for images, audio, and video. Tweak the settings you like, hit “Save as preset”, give it a name, and it shows up alongside the built-in presets next time you compress.

ALAC (Apple Lossless) is now an output format. Convert FLAC, WAV, or AIFF to a lossless .m4a that imports straight into Apple Music.

Other smaller fixes and improvements.

Save outputs in a subfolder beside each source file. Turn it on in Settings → Output, type a name (e.g. “compressed”), and every conversion or compression for that file is written to <sourceFolder>/<name>/. Files dropped from different folders each get their own subfolder, so originals stay untouched. Works for images, audio, and video, in both Convert and Compress.

Fixed AVIF compression failing silently. AVIF files now compress like any other image.

RAW photos (DNG, CR2, NEF, ARW, RAF) now show a clear message when you drop them into Compress, so you know to use Convert instead. Before, clicking Compress did nothing and there was no feedback.

Other smaller fixes and improvements.

The notch progress overlay is gone. Watched-folder activity now comes through as regular macOS notifications, and they all collapse into one entry in Notification Center instead of stacking up as a floating panel.

Fixed larger WebP files failing to convert to GIF. Animated and high-resolution WebPs now get a 5-minute conversion ceiling instead of being killed at 2 minutes, and the error message is clearer when a source is genuinely too large or has too many frames.

Other smaller fixes and improvements.

The menu bar now includes quick controls: open a file picker with ⇧⌘O, and adjust clipboard behavior inline. On Copy mode (Compress / Convert / Compress & Convert), Target Format, and Auto-Copy Result are nested under the Optimize Clipboard toggle and stay in sync with Settings.

Fixed an infinite loop where Auto-Copy would re-process the file Picmal had just placed on the clipboard, stacking overlay entries and re-running compression.

Fixed .jpeg files producing a sibling .jpg instead of overwriting (or preserving the source extension) on both compress and convert. Same-format operations now keep the input’s on-disk extension, so .jpeg, .tif, and similar aliases stay consistent.

The Settings window has been rebuilt from the ground up for a cleaner, more native macOS feel.

You can now rename output files using EXIF metadata. Set a pattern in Settings → Output and Picmal fills in the tokens from each file’s metadata as it processes them.

Handy for sorting shots by date, grouping by camera, or just getting away from IMG_0042 as a filename.

A handful of smaller fixes and improvements round things out.

The watermark section got a proper pass. The visual glitches that snuck in with 1.4.7 are gone, alignment behaves, and the presets UI no longer fights you when you’re trying to pick a position or tweak opacity.

Image conversions are also noticeably quicker. Same output, less waiting, especially on larger batches.

A handful of smaller fixes and improvements round things out.

There’s a new film icon next to every video. Click it, drop in an SRT or VTT, and the subtitles get baked right into the output. No sidecar file, no player roulette where half your viewers see nothing. Style them in Settings → Video: size, color, and whether they sit at the top, middle or bottom.

Same icon, second trick: playback speed per video. Pick 0.25×, 0.5×, 2×, 4×, or type in any custom percentage between 10% and 800%. Pitch stays put, so 2× won’t chipmunk your narrator. Doing the same speed across a whole batch? Hit “Apply speed to all videos” and be done.

Watermarks finally landed for videos. Drop in a logo or a PNG, save as many presets as you want, and pick position (9 anchors), margins and opacity from Settings → Watermark.

And a fix that should have shipped ages ago: resize settings were quietly ignored during Compress. Max Dimensions, Max Width/Height and friends now behave the same in Compress as they do in Convert.

Settings got a redesign. Things are where you’d expect now, and a few toggles nobody was using quietly left the building.

If your license is already active on another device, the activation error finally says so, with a link to the deactivation docs. No more staring at a red box wondering what you did wrong.

Clipboard optimization picked up a few tricks. Copy an image and you can have Picmal compress it, convert it to JPEG, PNG, WebP, HEIC, AVIF, TIFF or GIF, or both at once.

Batch conversions could hang forever, stuck at 99% or 0%, if you threw enough files at them. Fixed. Your fans should also stop spinning after conversions finish now.

You’ll see a warning icon in the convert table when a same-format conversion would overwrite the original file. Same goes for the compress bottom bar when prefix/suffix are empty. The Output settings page flags these per section too, so you’ll catch it before anything gets clobbered.

The automatic “_converted” suffix for same-format conversions is gone. Use prefix/suffix settings instead.

JPEG compression failures now capture error output, so when something breaks you actually get to see why.

You can now convert audio files to the same format they’re already in. Sounds pointless, but it’s how you resample: FLAC to FLAC at a different sample rate, without touching the codec. The new sample rate picker in Audio > Custom preset offers 8 kHz through 96 kHz, including the usual suspects (44.1 kHz for CD, 48 kHz for DVD).

Same-format conversions add a “_converted” suffix automatically, so your original stays untouched.

Plus a handful of smaller fixes.

MP4 to GIF conversions could produce broken or half-finished output, especially with variable frame rates or weird encodings. Fixed.

Corrupted video files (missing moov atom, truncated streams) now get a clear error message instead of silently failing. The error UI has been cleaned up too.

Launch is faster. The app no longer waits on non-essential setup before showing the window.

System notifications are gone. Instead, a progress overlay animates down from the MacBook notch (or slides in on other displays). The menu bar icon shows live progress percentages, so you can track conversions without switching back.

Cancelling a conversion no longer causes a brief UI freeze. Fixed several concurrency bugs in ServiceHandler, SharedTempFileManager, and FFmpegConverter.

Plus smaller fixes.

JPEG compression was silently producing truncated output. Fixed. Also killed the high idle CPU usage, which turned out to be a pile-up of aggressive clipboard polling, always-on cache timers, broad UserDefaults observation, and unbatched FSEvents.

Watched folders now have per-folder resize settings and a “compress after convert” toggle, so each folder can behave differently without touching global preferences.

Clipboard optimization gets an auto-copy mode: compressed images go straight back to the clipboard without the extra “Copy” click. Off by default.

Video compression lets you swap the output container (MOV to MP4, MKV, WebM, AVI) with automatic codec compatibility.

Click the screen icon on any processed file to open a before/after slider. Useful for checking whether your quality settings are too aggressive or too conservative.

Video compression now goes from CRF 0 to 51 for finer quality control, and a new frame rate setting lets you drop fps (60 to 30, say) for smaller files.

Picmal now remembers your last output format per input type. If you always go HEIC to JPG, it stops asking.

The clipboard overlay auto-dismisses after a configurable timeout (5 seconds by default) and no longer shows up in macOS screenshots.

WebP to GIF now preserves every frame in animated files, and static WebP conversions no longer fail randomly.

Clipboard optimization: copy an image and Picmal compresses it instantly. A small overlay appears with the lighter version ready to paste. No extra steps.

You can now set DPI metadata on output images: 72, 96, 144, 150, 300, 600, or a custom value. This tags the resolution info for print workflows without changing actual pixel dimensions.

Small maintenance release. Licence activation handles edge cases better, plus a few minor bug fixes.

Three metadata modes: strip everything, keep essentials (orientation, colour profile, copyright), or preserve all. Handy when you want privacy without losing colour accuracy.

Conversion now works on iCloud Drive, network shares, and read-only locations. No more “permission denied” when your files aren’t on the local disk.

HEVC videos with unusual frame rates convert correctly to MOV and play in QuickTime. Other minor fixes.

Drop files and folders straight into the menu bar icon to convert without opening the main window. Fastest way to handle a few files.

Also fixed dock icon drag-and-drop failing on some setups, plus a few smaller fixes.

Picmal could freeze on corrupted or unusually complex files. It now skips them and moves on to the next file in the queue.

Better Sentry reporting with more context around failures, so we can diagnose issues faster. Other minor stability fixes.

Sentry is now integrated for automatic crash and error detection. When something breaks, we know about it immediately.

No personal data is collected. Only error stack traces and basic device context.

PNG and SVG compression produces smaller files now, with no visible quality loss. If you use these for web assets or icons, you’ll notice.

Also fixes several crashes on macOS 14, mostly during initial setup. Other minor stability fixes.

Better compression across all formats. Smaller files, same visual quality.

Error messages when switching between Compress and Convert modes are actually useful now instead of generic. Video compression was broken in earlier versions (files weren’t always getting smaller), and encoding is noticeably faster.

“Keep in Menu Bar” no longer flashes the main window at login before hiding.

Watched folders: pick a folder, set your rules, and anything you drop in gets converted or compressed automatically. Set it and forget it.

Picmal now works with macOS Shortcuts, so you can trigger conversions from any automation. Background mode keeps the app running quietly in the menu bar after login.

Compression output now covers images, audio, and video.

Drag files onto the dock icon to start converting without opening the window. Files now persist when you switch between Convert and Compress tabs.

Added HIF format support for Canon cameras that shoot HEIF. Fixed DNG/RAW rotation, which was flipping some photos sideways after conversion.

SVG compression no longer chokes on files with certain CSS class names.

Audio and video conversion presets: save your settings, reuse them with one click. HEIC to WebP is now supported, and metadata stripping works across images, audio, and video.

The output panel shows which settings produced each file. Preferences has been reorganised. Large parts of the conversion pipeline have been rewritten for stability.

Fixed MKV to MP4 conversions producing unusable files with certain codecs.

Sharper PDF output. You can now open files via File > Open or Command+O.

Drop a folder and Picmal gathers everything inside, subfolders included. Right-click any file in Finder and you’ll see new options to convert or compress with Picmal.

Colour space conversion: sRGB, Display P3, Adobe RGB, ProPhoto RGB, Rec. 709, or Rec. 2020, with proper ICC profile embedding. Click the icon in the Size column to inspect colour space info.

Fixed FLAC to AAC conversion in optimised advanced mode.

EPS to SVG and AI to SVG conversion. For when you need to get vector files out of Illustrator’s proprietary formats.

Video and audio files now show conversion speed and estimated time remaining. Video conversions are faster and lighter on memory, especially for long files.

Instant conversion (no re-encoding) works for 50+ format combinations: WebM, MKV, MP4, FLV, 3GP, and more. VideoToolbox H.264 hardware encoding on Apple Silicon covers 12+ video formats, with 10-50x speed gains for FLV, WMV, MPEG, 3GP, and others.

Fixed WebM codec compatibility in Advanced mode. Buttons are clickable during conversion again. Faster, more accurate PDF compression.

Fixed a bug where multi-select was broken for audio and video files — the format dropdown now populates correctly when selecting media files via checkbox. Compression savings percentages are now accurate when converting between formats.

Advanced mode checkbox works again, and Advanced mode is now available in both Conversion and Compression. Tab bar text truncates properly.

Progress indicators for compression and conversion, which matter when a file takes several minutes. Cancel button to stop mid-process. Fixed some PDF compression errors.

Batch image resize with five modes: percentage, fixed dimensions, max dimensions, width-only, or height-only.

Audio and video files show metadata (duration, bitrate, codec, sample rate) and get advanced mode with FFmpeg controls. PDF compression colours fixed for Keynote and PowerPoint exports. Compressed files now get a “_compressed” suffix automatically.

31 audio and 25 video formats supported.

Audio and video support. 50+ audio formats (MP3, WAV, AAC, FLAC, OGG, OPUS, and the rest) and 24 video formats (MP4, MOV, AVI, MKV, WebM, FLV, WMV).

Same workflow as images: drop, pick a format, convert.

A big format expansion. 18 new formats now support conversion: JP2, PICT, QTIF, SGI, TGA, JXL, DDS, EXR, PBM, PGM, PPM, PNM, PCX, XBM, XPM, QOI and PSD.

10 new formats also support compression: BMP, JP2, TGA, JXL, DDS, EXR, PCX, SGI and QOI.

A quick patch with small bug fixes.

A quick patch with small bug fixes.

Fixed a crash that occurred when using the drag-and-drop view.

SVG compression is here, and PDFs now convert every page instead of just the first. Drag-and-drop crash fixed. General performance improvements.

Six compression presets: maximum quality, high quality, balanced, web optimised, social media, or maximum compression. Or make your own.

Faster conversion and compression across all formats.

Starting from this version, you’ll need to activate your licence within the app. Retrieve your licence key from app.lemonsqueezy.com/my-orders and activate it via Picmal > Register Licence.

Minor bug fixes and performance improvements.

Auto compress mode (Preferences > Files): drop files and they start compressing immediately. No buttons.

Custom prefixes and suffixes for compressed output files (Preferences > Output). Leave them blank to overwrite originals. New “Clear settings” button to reset compression quality to defaults.

Fixed files not compressing correctly on output.

Dedicated compress mode. Shrink JPG, WebP, PNG, GIF, TIFF, AVIF, and PDF files without converting them to anything else.

Compression also works as a post-conversion step: convert first, then automatically optimise. Other minor fixes.

Default format settings weren’t sticking in some cases. Fixed, along with other small reliability improvements.

Select multiple files and apply one output format to all of them at once. No more setting each file individually.

Notifications when your files finish converting, so you can do something else in the meantime.

Set your preferred output formats once in settings and Picmal applies them automatically on every drop.

Dark mode. Settings > General. The settings menu has been redesigned too.

Built-in updates. No more manual downloads from Gumroad. Preferences > Check for Updates.

Fixed critical bugs in EPS, AI, and WebP conversions. These formats work reliably now.

New error-reporting system (no personal data, just error data). And Picmal has a website: picmal.app.

Custom prefixes and suffixes for converted filenames. Handy for organising batches or adding timestamps. Set them in conversion settings.

Image metadata viewer: right-click any image, select “Show Metadata” to see EXIF data, colour profiles, camera settings, GPS coordinates, and other properties.

Metadata removal during conversion: EXIF, GPS coordinates, ICC profiles, XMP, and IPTC. Strip it all before sharing photos.

Smoother window resizing. Fixed AVIF images getting corrupted during batch conversion.

SVG input support. Convert vector icons and illustrations to PNG, JPEG, or other raster formats.

The conversion engine has been rewritten. About 40% faster, 30% less memory on large images. Older Macs will appreciate it.

Batch processing runs files in parallel when resources allow. The UI stays responsive during heavy conversions.