One command-line tool for every kind of file

You don't need to remember which tool handles which file, or its flags. These five lines cover a photo, a video, a recording, a Word file and a PDF:

Our 28.8 MB ProRes MOV came out as a 1.0 MB MP4 at 720p. The original file always stays as it was. To see what a file can become, ask convt:

convt targets clip.mov listed MP4, WebM, MKV, AVI, GIF, the sound formats (MP3, M4A, WAV, FLAC, AAC, OGG, Opus) and still images. When convt can't go straight from one format to another, it chains up to three steps, such as SVG to PNG to WebP.

Mac (Apple silicon): Homebrew puts convt on your PATH. If you install the disk image from the download page instead, the command is /Applications/convt.app/Contents/MacOS/convt.

Windows (x86_64): the installer doesn't add convt to your PATH, so in PowerShell type its full path: & "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\Programs\convt\convt.exe" photo.png --to webp.

Linux (x86_64): a .deb, .rpm, AppImage and tarball are on GitHub releases. The tarball has convt next to the FFmpeg and libraries it uses.

Word, Excel and PowerPoint files need LibreOffice. On Windows, convt pack install documents downloads it once as convt's document pack. On a Mac, install LibreOffice from libreoffice.org into Applications and convt finds it; on Linux, install it from your package manager. Run convt engines to see which engines are ready on your machine.

Give convt a folder instead of a file. -r takes the subfolders too, and -o writes the results into a separate folder with the same layout:

convt converts several files at once, one per CPU core unless you set -j. Files already in the target format are skipped. It never overwrites: running the same command again wrote a (1).webp next to a.webp. A folder input converts every file that can become the target, so a folder of mixed files to --to jpg also turns videos and PDFs into images.

Options that don't apply to a file are ignored for it, so one set of options can cover a folder of photos and videos. convt --help prints the same list:

A preset is a small TOML file with a target format and options. Pass its path with -p, or save it in convt's presets folder and use its name. convt presets lists the saved ones.

--json prints one JSON event per line on stdout, so a script or another app can show progress and read the output paths:

convt exits with 0 when every file converted and 1 when any failed, such as a file it can't read or a conversion it has no route for. convt formats --json lists every format with its extensions and MIME type. The Raycast extension runs the same command.

convt --skill prints a SKILL.md: every command, option and format, and how to check which engines are installed. Save it where your agent reads skills, and the agent can convert files on your machine without uploading them anywhere.

The tools people usually reach for each cover one kind of file, and they go much deeper than convt does there. convt is the one command across all of them:

FFmpeg, ImageMagick, LibreOffice and Pandoc are free. If you already know their flags and only work with one kind of file, they may be all you need.

As of convt 0.5.0, the current release:

• It can't shrink a file without changing its format: MP4 to a smaller MP4 or JPEG to a smaller JPEG isn't possible in 0.5.0.
• HEIC to JPEG drops the photo's EXIF data: the date taken, the camera and the location.
• It doesn't turn PDFs into Word files, images into SVG, or SVG into PDF.
• It doesn't edit: no cropping, trimming, filters or merging files.
• The Mac build needs Apple silicon; there is no Intel Mac build.

Each guide does one job, built-in tools first, with every convt command tested. For Finder's right-click menu, see the Mac file converter page.