Dinky is a native macOS utility designed to significantly reduce file sizes for images, videos, and PDFs. It targets users, particularly web designers and power users, who frequently need to optimize media for faster load times or reduced storage, offering a streamlined, efficient, and integrated solution.

How It Works

Built entirely in Swift and SwiftUI for macOS 15+, Dinky leverages native frameworks (AppKit, AVFoundation, PDFKit, Vision) and bundled CLI tools (cwebp, avifenc, oxipng, qpdf). It provides a unified drag-and-drop workflow, converting images to modern formats like WebP and AVIF, re-encoding videos to MP4, and optimizing PDFs via flattening or a text-preserving stream rewrite, optionally enhanced with on-device OCR. Compression runs asynchronously via an actor-based service.

Quick Start & Requirements

• Install: Download the DMG and drag Dinky to Applications.
• Prerequisites: macOS 15 Sequoia or later.
• Setup: Due to lack of notarization, macOS may block launch. Bypass via System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open Anyway, or run xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Dinky.app in Terminal.
• Resource Footprint: 33 MB installed.

Highlighted Details

• Unified Media Handling: Supports images, videos, and PDFs in one application.
• Image Format Conversion: Converts to WebP, AVIF, lossless PNG, or HEIC for substantial size reduction.
• Advanced PDF Options: Offers default flattening or a text/link-preserving mode, with optional Vision OCR for scan-like documents.
• Video Re-encoding: Exports videos to MP4 (H.264/HEVC) with quality presets.
• Configurable Presets: Save custom settings for format, quality, dimensions, file size, destination, and watch folders.
• Deep macOS Integration: Features drag-and-drop (app, Dock), clipboard paste (⌘⇧V), Finder Quick Actions, and Apple Shortcuts support.
• Automated Workflows: Watch folders compress new files automatically; presets can define unique folders and destinations.
• Personalized Notifications: Alerts scale with compression savings.

Maintenance & Community

Developed by Derek Castelli. No community channels (Discord, Slack), sponsorships, or roadmap details are provided in the README.

Licensing & Compatibility

The primary license for Dinky is not specified. Bundled tools include cwebp (BSD), avifenc (BSD), oxipng (MIT), and qpdf (Apache 2.0). Compatibility is strictly limited to macOS 15 Sequoia and newer. Commercial use implications are unclear due to the unstated application license.

Limitations & Caveats

• macOS Exclusive: Functionality is restricted to macOS 15+ environments.
• Notarization Barrier: Requires manual user intervention to bypass macOS security warnings on initial launch.
• Unspecified License: The absence of a clear license for the Dinky application itself poses a potential adoption blocker for commercial or derivative works.