How to compress a PNG on Mac
PNG is lossless, so it can’t be compressed like a JPG without changing the image. The real savings come from fewer pixels, or from a different format for photos. With FileMate, right-click the PNG and choose Compress Image: Stronger limits the longest side to 2560 px and Maximum to 1600 px, keeping the PNG format and its transparency. For a photo saved as PNG, converting to JPG is usually much smaller.
FileMate compresses PNGs on your Mac, without uploading them.
Make a PNG smaller with FileMate
- Right-click the PNG in Finder and choose FileMate › Compress Image.
- Safe re-saves it losslessly, at the same size. If the PNG is larger than the next limit, the result offers a stronger level.
- Stronger limits the longest side to 2560 px; Maximum to 1600 px. Transparency is kept.
- Use logo compressed.png, saved next to the original.
Why is my PNG so big?
PNG keeps every pixel exactly. That’s ideal for screenshots, logos and diagrams, which have large areas of the same colour that PNG stores compactly. It’s a poor fit for photos: millions of slightly different colours leave nothing to pack, so a photo as PNG is often 5 to 10 times the size of the same photo as JPG.
Retina screenshots are large for a different reason: a full-screen screenshot on a 5K display is 5120 × 2880 pixels.
Pick the right fix
| Your PNG | Best fix |
|---|---|
| A photo | Convert to JPG (how): often 80–90% smaller |
| A large screenshot or diagram | Reduce dimensions: FileMate’s Stronger or Maximum |
| A logo or icon with transparency | Reduce dimensions and keep PNG |
| Already small in pixels | There may be little to gain without changing the image |
What FileMate doesn’t do to PNGs
Some specialised tools shrink PNGs by reducing the number of colours, for example to a palette of 256. That can make graphics much smaller but changes how gradients and photos look. FileMate doesn’t reduce colours: it keeps the image exactly as it is, apart from the dimensions at Stronger and Maximum.
With Preview
Open the PNG, choose Tools › Adjust Size, and enter a smaller width. Then File › Export as PNG under a new name. Preview’s PNG export has no quality setting, because PNG has no quality to lower.
Get FileMate
Pixels are what make a PNG heavy. FileMate reduces them from Finder, keeps transparency, and leaves the original alone, on your Mac.
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