Making files smaller
3 min read
Mochi makes files smaller, and converts them from one format to another. Copy an image and the copy on your clipboard is already smaller. Drag any file and a small plate slides in, offering to shrink it, resize it, or convert it.
The four ways in
| Door | How it works |
|---|---|
| Copying an image | The copy on your clipboard is rewritten smaller, automatically, before you paste it |
| Dragging a file | A plate slides in at the edge of the screen. Drop the file on Squish, Convert or Downscale |
| The search window | Type squish, convert or downscale and press ↩ |
| Keyboard shortcuts | An opt-in group in Settings > Hotkeys — see below |
Copied images
When you copy an image, Mochi re-encodes the copy on your clipboard in the background — typically to a fraction of the size, in about a tenth of a second. A full-screen screenshot usually comes back around 80% smaller, looking the same. What you paste is the smaller version; nothing else changes.
- Images copied out of an editor are left alone — re-encoding something you are still editing would quietly stack up quality loss.
- Files that are already small or already lean are skipped rather than churned.
- If the pasteboard changes while Mochi is working, the result is thrown away rather than pasted over something newer.
- One switch in Settings > Squish turns it off.
The drop plate
Start dragging a file — from Finder, your desktop, anywhere — and the plate slides in from the edge of the screen. Drop the file on a slot and Mochi puts the result next to the original. It needs no permission, it never appears for a file it cannot act on, and it stays out of the way of whatever you are dragging.
What comes out
- The result is a new file next to the original —
shot.pngbecomesshot-squished.png. Your original is never written over. - If the smaller version is not actually smaller, you keep the original. Mochi never hands back a bigger file and calls it a win.
- Transparency is never flattened, animation frames are never dropped, and a file's extension is never changed without being asked.
What it can convert
| Family | In | Out |
|---|---|---|
| Images | PNG, JPEG, HEIC, TIFF, GIF, BMP, WebP, AVIF, most RAW | PNG, JPEG, HEIC, TIFF |
| Animations | GIF, APNG | GIF, APNG, or a much smaller MP4 |
| Video | MP4, MOV, M4V and anything QuickTime plays | MP4, MOV, a GIF, or just the audio |
| Audio | MP3, M4A, WAV, AIFF, FLAC, ALAC and more | M4A, WAV, AIFF, FLAC, ALAC |
| Documents | Word, RTF, HTML, Markdown, plain text | PDF, RTF, HTML, plain text |
| PDF, or several images | A smaller PDF, an image per page, or one PDF from the images |
Free and Pro
Images are free with no limit — the automatic clipboard squish, the plate, downscaling and image-to-image conversion. Pro adds video and audio, documents and PDF, and several files at once. See what Pro includes.
Keyboard shortcuts
One opt-in group in Settings > Hotkeys works the clipboard without touching the mouse. It ships switched off, like the window snapping keys.
After switching the group on.
Squish the image on your clipboard
Downscale the image on your clipboard
Put the original back