Clop: Optimize Media Like a Boss

An Incredible Utility to Optimize Images, Videos, and PDFs

Oct 21, 2023

I recently discovered Clop, a small and very nice utility app for optimization and resizing of images, videos, and PDFs. It’s the first optimization app I’ve seen with a huge amount of versatility in features and customization. I personally am always dealing images, photos, or videos whether it’s for personal use, for clients, or just for posting online. I also do a lot of scanning of my own personal journals and writing—which I like to keep as digital backups—so being able to optimize PDFs is super useful. Having something that allows you to save space, meet file size requirements for online platforms, send media as email attachments, or quickly downscale files with good quality can save you lots of trouble, and if you do it fast it is a huge time saver on the long run.

I have created a short video showing you Clop in action. I go over some of the settings and I show you a few ways I have it set up in my system. Read below for Clop’s Alfred workflow, the Automator app, and the Dropover shortcut.

THE ALFRED WORKFLOW

Clop by itself is AMAZING and VERY customizable, but if you want to make even more with the APP, you need to find your way around Clop’s CLI. This Alfred workflow is just a way to interact with the CLI, so you still need it installed—you do that by right clicking Clop’s menu bar icon.

Download

Download Alfred’s workflow HERE.

Last updated on 07/23/25

Usage

Once you install the workflow you will find “Clop” listed as an Alfred universal action. You can run it on files from there but I prefer to do my file selection in Finder and trigger the workflow with a keyboard shortcut. There’s three of them:

CTRL + O = Normal Optimization.
CTRL + CMD + O = Aggressive Optimization.
CTRL + SHIFT + O = Additional resizing and optimizing options.

If you trigger the Alfred command bar with CTRL + SHIFT + O and see a list with all the options, you must know that the “+” means ‘aggressive optimization.’ If you hold CMD while selecting any of them, a folder will be created—at the same location—with all your original/unoptimized files as a backup. If you hold OPTION, the optimization action will be performed recursively, to the files in all subfolders.

DROPOVER SHORTCUT

This shortcut is only meant to be used if you have Dropover. It will grab the paths of whatever files you have on a shelf and send them to the Clop’s Alfred workflow. There’s an area at the bottom of the workflow itself for you to customize your preferred hotkeys for running this shortcut. You have the same three options mentioned above on what to do with the files in the shelf.

Download

Download the Dropover-to-Clop shortcut HERE.

Last updated on 10/20/23

AUTOMATOR APP

If you use Lightroom, Capture One, or any app that allows you to perform an action after exporting images, you’ll be glad to know that you can automate Clop’s optimization with a tiny app I created in Mac’s Automator. The only thing this will do is grab a received file and run the optimization using Clop’s CLI. I must mention that while this method works well for a few photos, for larger amounts, I've found that the fastest way is to let Lightroom or Capture One place the files on a Dropover shelf after export and run the optimization that way. Alternatively, you can directly run the optimization on the folder of the exported files.

Download

Download zipped file HERE.

Last updated on 10/20/23

CLOSING

You can read more about Clop from its official page. There’s a free version of the app which allows you to optimize up to five files per session, and there’s also a 14-day trial for the Pro version.

I’m not affiliated in any way. Prior to discovering Clop I was using JpegMini for image optimization. But man, this is so much better in every way, plus the developer is the most responsive developer I’ve ever had the pleasure of interacting with. You can rest assured that he’ll get back to you for any feedback or if you need help with the app. For me, that brings me lots of peace of mind.

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