Compress a video on Mac, offline
Short answer. Paperlane for Mac compresses video with Apple's VideoToolbox hardware encoders. Drop in a video and choose a quality level or a target file size. Nothing is uploaded and the original stays untouched. You can drop a whole folder of clips and run the same setting over every one of them.
Three ways to do it
In the app
Open Compress Video, drop one or more files, pick a quality or a size target, and run.
From Finder
Select videos in Finder, right-click, and choose Compress with Paperlane.
With Shortcuts
Use the Run Paperlane Tool action in Shortcuts with Compress Video, for example on everything saved to a folder.
Steps
- Open Compress Video and drop in your files.
- Pick a quality preset or enter a target size in megabytes.
- Optionally cap the resolution and choose H.264 or HEVC.
- Run the job and compare the new file with the original.
At a glance
- Engine
- AVFoundation with VideoToolbox hardware encoding
- Output
- MP4 with H.264 or HEVC
- Modes
- Quality preset or target size in MB
- Resolution
- Keep, or scale down to 2160p, 1080p, 720p or 480p
- Original file
- Never modified
Honest limitations
- A size target is an aim, not a guarantee: very short or already heavily compressed clips can land above or below it.
- WebM, MKV and AVI are not supported; the app works with formats macOS can read and write natively.
Need just one file?
Do one file free in your browser: Compress Video
Questions
Does compressing a video on Mac upload it anywhere?
No. The work is done by your Mac's own encoders and the file never leaves the machine.
Will the compressed video look worse?
Any size reduction trades some quality. Lower presets and small size targets show more artefacts, so check the result before deleting the original.
Can I compress many videos at once?
Yes. Drop several files or a folder and the same setting runs over each one.