Squash 2
The fun way to compress images
£14.99 FROM Realmac Software, realmacsoftware.com NEEDS OS X 10.11 or higher
Optimising images for the web is not usually fun. Enter Squash 2, which squishes images to make them load faster, all with an ‘oddly satisfying sound’.
Squash is that rare thing: a serious app with a playful personality. It optimises and converts image files so they’re ready to email or upload to websites or social networks. The app performs those jobs exceptionally well, either individually or in batches, and with a satisfying sound, fun animations and nicely chosen language.
Using Squash is simple. Just drag the file or files you want to optimise onto its window and it’ll get to work. It can compress JPEGs and PNGs to make them vastly smaller with no loss of visual quality, and you can adjust the level of compression to make it more or less aggressive in the app’s preferences or the Touch Bar, if your Mac has one. There’s also an option to strip metadata from JPEGs.
Squash can convert files, too: PSD, CR2, TIFF and raw formats magically become JPEGs without having to open (or own) Photoshop, making this a particularly useful app if you’re a designer who often has to send ideas or finished designs to clients. Fast, easy to use, and with impressive results, Squash 2 shines a little ray of sunshine on a task that’s normally dull and dreary.