convt for Mac
A file converter for your Mac
convt converts video, audio, images, PDFs and Office documents on your Mac. Right-click a file in Finder, pick a format, and the new file appears next to the original. The same install gives you the convt command for folders and scripts. Local conversions never leave your computer.
It runs on Macs with Apple silicon and macOS 13 or later, and costs $39 once. It's also on Windows and Linux.
What your Mac converts without extra apps
From Apple's guides Perform quick actions in the Finder, Convert image file types using Preview, Export movies in QuickTime Player and Convert a song to a different file format.
Try these first. For one file, they're often all you need:
- Finder: the Convert Image quick action turns a photo into JPEG or PNG, at a smaller size if you like. Create PDF makes a PDF from images.
- Preview: File › Export saves an image or PDF as HEIC, JPEG, JPEG-2000, OpenEXR, PDF, PNG or TIFF.
- QuickTime Player: File › Export As saves a video at 4K, 1080p, 720p or 480p, or just its sound as an M4A file. The video stays a MOV.
- Music: makes MP3, AAC, AIFF, WAV or Apple Lossless copies of songs in your library. It doesn't open FLAC.
Each app covers one kind of file, and only Music imports a whole folder. convt fills those gaps:
Convert files with a right-click in Finder
How the convt Finder menu works, from its source. We haven't recorded it on a Mac for this page.
convt adds a Convert with convt menu to Finder. Select one file or several, Control-click, and the menu lists a short set of common formats they can all become. Pick one and convt writes the new file next to the original without opening a window. More options… opens convt's Quick convert window for quality, size and the output folder.
macOS asks you to turn on Finder extensions yourself. The first time you open convt, it shows a step that opens System Settings at the right place and tells you when the menu is on. To change which formats the menu offers, use Settings › Menu in the app, or convt menu in Terminal.
If you use Raycast, its convt extension converts the files selected in Finder too.
What convt converts on a Mac
Run on convt 0.5.0, the current release.
One app handles each of these, so you don't need a separate video converter, audio converter and image converter. The full list, with what each format turns into, is on the formats page.
- Video
- MP4, MOV, WebM, MKV and AVI to each other, plus GIF and the sound track alone (MP3, M4A, WAV). Cap the height with
--video-height, pick H.264 or HEVC with--video-codec. - Audio
- MP3, WAV, FLAC, AAC, M4A, OGG and Opus. Set the bitrate with
--audio-bitrate. - Images
- HEIC, JPEG, PNG, WebP, AVIF, GIF, TIFF, BMP, ICO, TGA, PPM, QOI and OpenEXR, and SVG to any of them. Shrink with
--max-size, set quality with-q. - Pages to PNG, JPEG or another image format (
--pages,--dpi). - Documents
- DOCX, DOC, ODT, RTF, TXT and HTML; XLSX, XLS, ODS and CSV; PPTX, PPT and ODP. Each converts to PDF and to the other formats of its kind.
In Terminal, it's one pattern for every kind of file: the file, then --to and the format.
convt clip.mov --to mp4convt clip.mov --to mp4 --video-height 720 -o smallconvt song.wav --to mp3convt photo.heic --to jpgconvt report.docx --to pdfclip.mov -> ./clip.mp4
clip.mov -> small/clip.mp4
song.wav -> ./song.mp3
photo.heic -> ./photo.jpg
report.docx -> ./report.pdfOur 3-second 1080p ProRes MOV was 28.8 MB. As an MP4 it came out at 3.1 MB, and at 1.0 MB with --video-height 720. To see what a file can become before you convert it, run convt targets clip.mov.
Convert whole folders from Terminal
Run on convt 0.5.0, the current release.
Give convt a folder instead of a file. -r takes the subfolders too, and -o puts the results in a separate folder with the same layout, so the originals stay where they are:
convt Photos --to webp -r -o webpPhotos/a.png -> webp/a.webp
Photos/2026/b.png -> webp/2026/b.webp
2 converted, 0 failedconvt converts several files at once (-j sets how many) and runs videos one at a time. Files already in the target format are skipped. Add --json to get one progress event per line for a script, and run convt --help for every option.
Homebrew puts convt in Terminal for you. If you installed from the disk image, type /Applications/convt.app/Contents/MacOS/convt instead of convt.
What convt doesn't do yet
- It needs a Mac with Apple silicon (M1 or later). There is no build for Intel Macs.
- It can't shrink a file without changing its format. MP4 to smaller MP4 or JPEG to smaller JPEG isn't possible in 0.5.0, so for that use HandBrake or Preview.
- HEIC to JPEG drops the photo's EXIF data: the date taken, the camera and the location.
- An animated WebP becomes one still image, the first frame.
- Word, Excel and PowerPoint files need the document pack, a one-time download the app offers during setup (
convt pack install documentsin Terminal).
Price and install
A Desktop license is $39, paid once, with every future desktop update. There's no subscription. Desktop + Cloud is $69 once and adds a year of cloud conversions that doesn't renew. Cloud jobs upload the file to convt's servers, and the app only does that when you pick Cloud for a job.
Get the disk image from the download page (you'll sign in first), or install with Homebrew:
brew tap opencoredev/convt https://github.com/opencoredev/convtbrew install --cask convtStep-by-step guides
Each guide does one job on a Mac, built-in tools first, with every command tested:
- How to convert HEIC to JPG on a MacConvert iPhone HEIC photos to JPG on a Mac with free built-in tools (Finder, Preview, Photos and sips), or batch-convert folders with subfolders using the convt CLI.
- How to batch convert HEIC to JPG on WindowsConvert iPhone HEIC photos to JPG on Windows 11: one at a time in the Photos app, or whole folders with subfolders in one tested convt command.
- How to convert MOV to MP4 on a MacConvert MOV videos to MP4 on a Mac: rename H.264 files, export from iMovie, remux with FFmpeg without losing quality, or batch-convert and shrink folders with convt.
- How to convert WebP to PNG or JPGSave WebP images as PNG or JPG with Preview on a Mac or Paint on Windows, or convert whole folders at once with convt, keeping transparency in PNG.
- How to convert a PDF to PNG on Mac or WindowsSave PDF pages as PNG images with Preview on a Mac or a screenshot on Windows, or convert every page, chosen pages or whole folders at a set DPI with convt.
- How to convert MP4, FLAC and WAV to MP3 on a MacTurn an MP4 or WAV into MP3 on a Mac with QuickTime and the Music app, or use convt for FLAC files and whole folders, at the bitrate you pick.
Questions
- Is convt free?
- No. The source code is open (AGPL-3.0), but the signed Mac app is $39 once. The built-in tools at the top of this page cost nothing, and for one photo or one video they're often enough.
- Does it upload my files?
- Not for local conversions, which is everything on this page. The only uploads are cloud jobs, which you pick per job and which need Desktop + Cloud.
- How is it different from Permute or HandBrake?
- HandBrake is a free video encoder with many settings. It makes video files only, not images, audio files or documents. Permute is a paid Mac app that converts video, audio, images and PDFs. convt also converts Office documents, has a command-line tool for folders and scripts, and runs on Windows and Linux too.
- Does it work on Windows?
- Yes, the app and the
convtcommand run on Windows. The Explorer right-click menu isn't in the Windows installer yet.