fuzzyideas / clop

Clipboard optimizer for macOS

Clop

Image, video, PDF and clipboard optimiser

Copy large, paste small, send fast

Optimise images as soon as you copy them

As long as the Clop app is running, every time you copy an image to your clipboard, Clop will optimise it to the smallest possible size.

The optimised image will have minimal to zero loss in quality, and will be ready to paste in any app.

Screen recordings as small as screenshots

Sending screen recordings becomes 10x faster with Clop. The app will optimise the video as soon as you stop recording.

The video will be available as a floating thumbnail, ready for you to drag and drop in any app.

Clop can use Apple Silicon's dedicated Media Engine chip for battery-efficient video encoding without using the CPU.

Downscale in a pinch

Get images and videos ready for sharing by scaling them down to any resolution.

Use handy hotkeys or the floating buttons to downscale the image or video and get an even smaller file size.

• - downscales incrementally from 90% until 10% of the original resolution
• 1..9 are for downscaling to specific sizes

Power user features

1. On-demand optimisation

Press Ctrl-Shift-C to manually optimise the current clipboard.

The action works on images, video files, paths, URLs, even base64 encoded images.

For more aggressive optimisation, Ctrl-Shift-A is also available.

2. Compatible formats

Clop automatically converts less compatible formats like HEIC, tiff, mov to formats understood by most devices.

The conversion is fully configurable from the app settings.

Original files are kept in a backup folder which can be accessed from the app menu.

3. macOS Shortcuts

Integrate Clop optimisation in your workflows through native macOS Shortcuts.

• Downscale and optimise images that you email weekly
• Download optimised images directly into your slideshow
• ..and so on

Free vs Pro

Free version features are free forever.

After the 14-day trial, the app will continue to work with the free features.

Feature	Clop Pro	Free version
Clipboard optimisation	✅	✅
Downscale images	✅	✅
Optimise screen recordings	✅	5 per session
Optimise screenshot files	✅	5 per session
On-demand optimisation	✅	5 per session
Shortcuts support	✅	5 per session

Technical details

Clop uses the following open source tools for optimising files, images and videos:

• pngquant for PNG
• jpegoptim for JPEG
• gifsicle for GIF
• ffmpeg for videos
• libvips for resizing images
• gifski for converting videos to GIFs
• ghostscript for optimising PDFs

It may also use libvips for resizing images if it is installed on your system.

The app is licensed under GPLv3.

What's up with the hat?

Clop is the Romanian word for a traditional straw hat with a high crown and raised conical brim, worn more as an adorment in days of celebration.

We thought "Clipboard Optimizer" sounds a bit too technical and doesn't roll off the tongue as easily. We're Romanian ourselves and we thought it might be a good idea to keep the memory of our traditions from dying completely, with whatever little we can do.

clop's Issues

It empties encrypted PDF

MacOS 14.2.1
Clop 2.5.2

I downloaded several encrypted PDFs to my Downloads folder where I have automatic compression of PDFs, images and videos enabled. The result was that Clop converts the encrypted PDF to an empty one. It should check that the PDF is not encrypted before processing it.

Cannot find X in scope

Hello! Noob here, so I might be reporting something very basic.
I'm getting several errors. Most of them, "Cannot find X in scope", where X is Regex, Window and SMAppService.
My guest is I'm missing some dependency, but as I said, I'm new to Mac App development.

Thanks for sharing! I'm using this as a learning project and plan to make some changes (would not say improvements yet)

PDF compression: Chinese text becomes garbled

HI!

I'm encountering an issue while using the compression tool to compress PDF documents saved from Safari. The web pages are in Chinese language. After compressing the PDF, copying the text from within the document and pasting it results in garbled characters. Additionally, the PDF is not searchable for Chinese text. However, searching and copying English text within the PDF works fine.

The location of the pop-up window is uncomfortable

The pop-up window is located in the four corners. When I want to actively drag the image to compress it, the screen is too large and it is difficult to use the touchpad.

Survey ImageOptim output and utilize best practices? And more...

Your tool caught me by surprise. It's very attractive to have the capacity to have optimized pasteboard/clipboard contents that are similarly converted to the most optimal format.

First, have you per chance performed a survey with ImageOptim.app to perhaps ascertain if it's using any options / settings that are superior to what Clop presently does? Eg, I use these generally:

Secondly, I this doesn't seem immediately feasible, but long term I've been DYING to find a Skitch 1 (NOT 2) and NOT CleanShot (or others) clone. CleanShot guys are kinda close'ish, but after a couple years of begging, I don't think they'll ever warm up to a clone approach to Skitch. Making an outright clone of that would be pretty much the perfect / ideal annotation / capture app. There's a pretty large consensus to this if you look at old MacUpdate and other reviews and commentary. The UX was about as close to perfection as anyone has ever seen and if you were to make such a thing, you'd get my donation/purchase.

Third, a CloudApp (now known as Zight), but self hosted that you could integrate for file sharing into this kind of work flow would be the icing and bucket-o-cherries on top.

Optimizations are not overwriting clipboard/pasteboard - sometimes (particularly for PNG → JPG conversions based on complexity)

I'm finding that many times images that should be optimized, particularly when complexities are involved for transitioning PNGs to JPEG images, are not actually arriving into the pasteboard/clipboard and allowing paste of the newly optimized image into an app. It seems that it is successful in that the thumbnail is shown for Clop with the size savings, etc. - but yet the optimized version does not avail itself.

Any thoughts on how or why this could be happening and how to troubleshoot/debug this situation?

Frustrating Image Copying Issue - Why Does It Copy the File Path Instead?

When copying image files, instead of the actual image being copied to the clipboard, I receive a file path such as /tmp/clop/images/94216.png. This behavior is highly frustrating

Install with Homebrew?

I love what you make. Is there a way to install it with Homebrew? (I would love to add it to my Brewfile and have it be available everywhere I am.)

Disable on certain programs - copying a textbox on Powerpoint makes it into an image

Copying a textbox or item on Powerpoint makes it paste as an image, therefore I have to quit Clop. Would be useful to be able to exclude certain apps from triggering clop.

Is Clop reducing the image quality?

Couldn't find the answer neither here or on your website.

Awesome app, btw!

Is it possible to turn off for specific applications (eg. keynote)?

Hi,

Is it possible to turn off clop for certain apps, I use keynote a lot and it messes with some of the shapes and turns them into image files. I love using clop, but I sadly can't use the automation function until i can specify it to ignore certain apps.

Optimization failed

Hey,

Great app!

I'm trying to optimize an mp4 file, and it doesn't matter if it's big or small I always get "Optimisation failed"

Any ideas what can be the problem?

Optimises the same file in a never-ending loop

I have a watch folder specified that I will drop an image into and at times the image will re-optimise over and over

E.G. I'll drop the image into the folder (say 200 KB) and it will immediately pick it up and optimise to say, 40 KB

Then it will carry on in a loop until the same file is now mere bytes in size. I've just done 2 files and the one is at 204 bytes while the other at 506 bytes and both are still looping?

Today it appears to be extra bad in that it is doing with all

20240209-Edit

See video:

clop-issue-2024-02-09.mp4

Optimizing Image Compression with Clop: A Workflow Enhancement

When using Clop for image compression, specifically for converting JPEG or PNG files, a notable issue arises. The tool employs two distinct processing logics depending on the file detail, which complicates the process of directly overwriting the original images. This approach introduces an additional step and associated costs for file replacement.

I want to directly overwrite the original file to reduce the number of steps.

Wrong link to your License

Just found this product, I am really interested in using it, thanks!

On your website https://lowtechguys.com/clop/ the link to GPLv3 is broken. Here's a screenshot, which was optimized with Clop:

Can it be compatible with macOS 12 ？

Feature Request: Crop videos

First off, loving the app so far and have used it to replace ImageOptim & Handbrake in my workflow (not sure about PDF Squeezer yet). Anyway, I was thinking it would be a really useful feature to be able to crop video directly in Clop (via the right-click context menu). Currently, I need to go through Apple Photos (Right Click -> Share -> Add to Photos, Photos -> Edit -> Crop, Photos -> File -> Export -> Export 1 Video) in a very tedious process just to be able to crop a clip natively. Would it be possible to introduce that as a feature?

PNGs are converted to JPG

Instead of optimizing PNG files, Clop creates a JPG version of my PNG files. I tried both, the direct download version and from Version 2.4.0 via Setapp (on M1).

Format settings are left to default (though I don't even see an option to deliberatley convert all png to jpg.

Clop & Clipboard: redundant optimising when saving screenshots

I use Clop in combination with CleanShot. I have Optimise Clipboard turned on, as well as the option where all the files I save in ~/Screenshots are processed. However, when I decide to save a screenshot (⌘+S in CleanShot) what would be nice is that Clop could somehow detect that it is in fact the same image data and use the clipboard data for saving instead of doing it again. Right now, it seems like a bit of CPU usage for nothing.

Here's a little video to illustrate when I mean:

20230921_224844_Arc.mp4

disable auto-optimize

at present, even with null watch paths and all hotkeys disabled, it seems ⌘ + c triggers an optimisation (bottom right popup appears)

this is undesirable:

• when the optimisation fails (often, possibly FUSE/NFS related), the source file is replaced with a 0 byte broken file
• when the optimization succeeds, the source file is replaced (!!) with clop's output, without my having 'approved' this - the only action taken was ⌘ + c

much more often than not, when copying, i don't want optimization to occur, for example if transferring full fat pictures from a camera to a network share - i want the originals!

ideal scenario (for my use case): clipboard copy does nothing by default, but can be manually instigated via defined hotkey (my choice of modifier + C, per Clop's settings pane), or even better, with a similar command that optimizes then pastes
is this possible? if so, please advise what i'm missing

further, more philosophically, is it sane to have (potentially, and at present empirically) destructive defaults?

fwiw, i'd find ($) value in this utility if it behaved as requested - an on demand background clipboard optimizer for images/gifs

v2.0.3 ie latest, but also also Sonoma 14.0 Beta (23A5312d), possibly this is the problem?

Respect Strip EXIF Metadata for video optimisation

When Strip EXIF Metadata is disabled video optimisation still remove meta such as coordinates.

How to reproduce:

• Get a video with Latitude and Longtitude (like from iPhone with default Camera settings), can check with CMD+I
• In Clop settings disable option Strip EXIF Metadata
• In Finder right click on a video and choose Optimise with Clop
• After optimisation metadata is missing

It would be nice to respect this setting also for video optimisation.

Auto-optimization breaks cmd+option+v for moving files in Finder

In Finder, when you want to move files with the keyboard, you have to use cmd+c and then cmd+option+v. There's no ctrl+x and ctrl+v workflow like in Linux and Windows.

With Clop installed, when you cmd+c an image, it creates a new optimized version. And when you cmd+option+v, it moves the optimized version to the desired location, leaving the original in place.

While I'm glad the original is safe, this breaks the keyboard-driven workflow for moving files.

I read this issue where you mention we could have the optimization happen on paste with cmd+v, but that it needs more permissions.

Personally, I'm fine with needing more permissions and would love to have this option 🙌

Disable Floating Results For Image Auto-Optimizer

First of all, want to say this is one of my favourite apps! Simple idea, and near flawless execution!

Right now I'm using this to optimize a constant flow of image screenshots of my screen. This results in Clop popping up every few seconds with new results..
Can we add an option per-folder to not show the results and just have it work silently in the background?

Feature Request: Optional guetzli image compression

ImageOptim has an option to use guetzli compression, which is pretty slow, but produces noticeably smaller (lossless) files. Would be great if a feature could be added to Clop to (optionally) compress with guetzli instead.

Finder funniness

You had me there for a few minutes. I ran Clop through the Apple Services Menu and realised there is nothing in the Finder to tell me anything happened because the Date Modified doesn't change. The only way to tell is the Date Last Opened is wiped out and so is the Tag. To me this is a bug not a feature.

Could this support macOS 12 (Monterey)?

Or is there some technical reason why macOS 12 can't be supported?

pro version?

release notes say "Completely free version before the Pro features were introduced..."

where is the pro version? I couldn't find any mention of it anywhere...