Compresto for macOS

Description

Compresto suits people who want to shrink media files without uploading them to a web service. It runs entirely on your Mac, so the file stays with you.

Drag-and-drop compression right in Finder

• Sits alongside Finder and Quick Actions for one-off drag-and-drop compression.
• Works as a background tool when you set watched folders — new files get compressed automatically.
• Pairs with Raycast if you prefer a keyboard launcher.
• Handles batch jobs that would be tedious in Preview or QuickTime.

What it can do

Compresto leans on FFmpeg for media compression and can trim file size by up to 90%. It processes several files at once and can turn video clips into GIFs. Version 1.30.1 pulled back from registering as the default app for movies, PNG and JPEG, which keeps your existing defaults undisturbed.

Compresto doesn’t grab the spotlight. It stays in the menu bar, next to the clock, where it belongs. Right-click the icon to see recent jobs, pause a batch, or open a watched folder. The app respects macOS notifications too — a quiet ping when a batch finishes, nothing more.

If you use Raycast, the extension lets you send a file straight from the launcher without opening the main window. Type the filename, pick the Compresto action, choose a quality preset. Three keystrokes and it’s running. The extension is lightweight and doesn’t add a separate background process.

Finder integration is straightforward. Select a handful of video files, right-click, and pick Compresto from the Services menu. The app opens briefly, then minimises itself. You keep working. The compressed copies land alongside the originals with a suffix appended to the filename.

Watched folders tie everything together. Point Compresto at a folder — say, a desktop “To compress” directory — and anything dropped in gets processed. That means editors can export from DaVinci Resolve or Final Cut Pro straight into the folder and come back to smaller files without extra clicks. The compresto mac workflow feels natural once it’s set up: export, wait a moment, grab the result.

Daily performance feel

On a busy machine, Compresto keeps its head down. The FFmpeg worker processes use the cores available, but they yield quickly when other apps need power. You won’t see the fans spin up on Apple Silicon while a batch crawls through a folder of 4K clips. Memory use hovers around 200–300 MB during active jobs and drops back once the queue empties.

Stability is uneventful, which is what you want from a compression tool. Version 1.30.1 sorted out component installation quirks that could leave a job hanging. Since then, it hasn’t crashed mid-batch in our trials. If a file can’t be processed — a corrupt MP4, say — the app logs the failure and moves on to the next item. No stuck queues.

Speed depends almost entirely on the quality level you pick. Lower settings rip through short clips in seconds. The highest quality setting, which preserves more detail for transparent video or GIF conversion, takes its time. It never feels sluggish, just methodical. The compresto mac app is built around FFmpeg’s proven pipeline, so the trade-off between time and file size is predictable. You learn what to expect by the second or third batch, and you plan accordingly.

What’s new

Fixes an issue where non‑Latin filenames could cause the compression to stall, plus a handful of smaller stability improvements.

Requirements

• macOS 13 or later
• Apple Silicon or Intel 64-bit processor