MediaShift

General

Drag MediaShift.app into Applications, then open it from Applications. Requires macOS 13 or later and an Apple Silicon Mac. The app appears in the menu bar. Closing Settings keeps it running; Quit stops folder watching.

This app is not signed with an Apple Developer ID or notarized. If macOS blocks it, first try opening it, then go to System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open Anyway. Only proceed if you trust its source. Do not disable macOS security protections.

Folders

Set up watched folders so the app automatically converts your files to another format when you change their extension. ⚠️ Only files of the same type can be converted: image to image, audio to audio or video to video.

In Folders, add a test folder. Subfolders are included. Wait a moment after adding a file, then rename its extension in Finder, for example photo.png → photo.jpg. Keep the app open and watching active. Renames while paused or closed and moves between folders do not trigger conversion. Keeping an original copy is off by default; enable it in General to keep a copy. When enabled, unique names avoid overwriting files.

In Finder → Settings → Advanced, enable “Show all filename extensions”. Finder may ask you to confirm an extension change.

Rename without Finder confirmation

Disabling Finder confirmation is a global, persistent setting for every Finder file, even when MediaShift is closed. Outside watched folders, changing an extension does not convert content. You can restore confirmation in General. Unsupported conversions are rejected; the original name is restored only when safe. If restoration fails, check the filename, extension and folder permissions in Finder. No protection is guaranteed for very fast renames or files modified at the same time.

Appearance

General lets you choose a language and a light, dark or system appearance. Changes apply immediately and are saved. System language is used by default, with English as fallback. Image, audio and video tabs control output quality. Activity shows the last 30 conversions of the current session. Quit is unavailable during conversion or while jobs are queued.

Images

PNG, TIFF, BMP: lossless, no quality setting. GIF: up to 256 colors. JPEG: transparency becomes white. 100% means maximum quality, not lossless compression.

Audio

WAV and AIFF: uncompressed 16-bit PCM. FLAC: lossless compression via FFmpeg. Converting to 16-bit PCM may reduce the precision of a 24-bit source.

Video

Apple export profiles may reduce resolution. FFmpeg uses H.264 or VP9. Subtitles, multiple tracks and metadata may not be preserved in this prototype.

About

MediaShift is free, under the MIT license. FFmpeg is distributed under GPLv3. Sparkle and its components retain their own licenses, available below.

Updates

Enabled by default: checks at launch, then every 4 hours while the app is running.

Only updates require Internet. Your files stay on your Mac. Downloads are verified before installation; the app waits for conversions to finish before restarting.