Heftr
Storage X-ray for macOSNever touches your original100% on device
Why is this file so big?
Drop in a PDF, a photo, an Office doc, a video, or a whole folder. Heftr shows you exactly what is eating the bytes, gives a plain-English verdict, and makes a smaller copy where that is safe. Your original is never touched.
v1.3.2 · macOS 13+, including 27 Golden Gate · Apple Silicon & Intel · Signed & notarized by Apple · No account
01 See it in action
Open anything, see where the bytes went, and take the safe fix. The original is never touched.
02 How it works
Drop it. See it. Shrink it.
Drop the file
Drop any file onto the window: a PDF, photo, Office doc, video, app, or a whole folder. Drop several at once to compare them.
See the breakdown
A beautiful segmented bar shows exactly what's taking up the space (images, fonts, content, media, overhead), and it always reconciles to the real size on disk.
Read the verdict
One plain-English sentence tells you why it's big ("85% of this PDF is images") so you know what's actually worth doing something about.
One-click smaller copy
Where there's a safe fix, Heftr shows the projected size and writes a smaller copy next to your file. The original is never touched.
03 Features
Finally know what's eating the bytes.
One focused, native window that inspects the file honestly, and only offers a fix when there's a safe one, without ever sending your file to the cloud.
The file-size X-ray
A genuinely beautiful segmented breakdown bar with a matching ranked list and live cross-highlighting: images, fonts, content, media, overhead. Every breakdown reconciles to the real size on disk, so the segments always add up to what Finder shows you.
Reconciles exactly
The biggest things inside
The breakdown says which kind of thing is eating the bytes. This says which one: a ZIP's members by their full path inside the archive, a PDF's individual images with their dimensions and codec, its embedded fonts by name, and whether each font was subset to the characters used or carried whole. Every column sorts, either way, from the keyboard.
Sortable columns
Shrink Office & ZIP files
For docx, xlsx, pptx, zip and epub, Heftr buckets every member by size, names the single biggest one, and re-encodes the oversized PNG/JPEG media inside into a smaller copy. The document stays perfectly valid.
docx · xlsx · pptx · zip
PDF shrink that keeps text sharp
The most common "why is this PDF huge" case (embedded photos) is one click. Heftr downsamples the raster images via a Quartz filter (150 DPI by default, gentler or harder a click away) while text and vectors stay vector, never rasterized, so the copy is smaller but still crisp and selectable.
Never rasterized
See inside a photo
For JPG, PNG, HEIC and TIFF, Heftr gives a byte-exact split of the actual pixel data vs an embedded preview vs the ICC color profile vs metadata, then re-encodes at a strength you pick and strips the preview and metadata into a smaller copy.
Byte-exact
Get it under X MB
Type a target and Heftr picks the gentlest fix intensity that still fits (for images, PDFs and Office/ZIP media) and shows the projected result before writing. If it can't reach the target safely, it says so and saves the smallest it could. A fit tries one quality step at a time, so it can take minutes on a big file. Press Stop and it writes nothing at all.
Target size
Choose how hard to push
Gentle, Balanced or Strong, each printing the settings it actually uses (
Measured, not promised
150 DPI · quality 70) and the projected size before a byte is written. Afterwards Heftr re-X-rays the copy it made and shows the real before → after for every segment, so what you get is measured rather than promised.Folder mode: a mini-DaisyDisk
Drop a folder or an
Interactive treemap
.app and get an interactive, fully accessible treemap of what's eating the space, biggest first, with a ranked list and the biggest individual files anywhere in the tree. Click any block to drill in; a breadcrumb walks you back. Biggest files in here is a sortable table (Name, Folder and Size, either direction, from the keyboard), and each row says which subfolder it came from, so eight files called IMG_0431.jpg are eight distinguishable rows.Batch everything
Drop several files at once to rank and compare them, drill into any one, and shrink every item that has a safe fix in a single pass, at the strength you picked, with per-file progress and a real reason for anything that failed. Changed your mind ten files in? The button becomes Stop, and everything already finished is kept.
Stoppable
Video, diagnosed
For MP4, MOV and M4V, Heftr breaks down the per-track Video vs Audio vs container size with a bitrate verdict, then hands the actual re-encode to Squishr, its sibling built for that. Heftr never touches video pixels itself.
→ Squishr
Copy the report
One click copies a clean, plain-text summary of any breakdown to the clipboard, in the order you sorted it, so the report matches the window you were looking at. Paste it into a ticket, an email, or a note to remember what was hiding in that file.
Never touches your original
Heftr is non-destructive by design. Every fix writes a new (smaller) or (compressed) copy alongside the original, and existing files are never overwritten.
Originals untouched
100% on your Mac
Nothing is uploaded, ever. No account, no cloud, no usage analytics. The only times Heftr touches the network are an optional business-license check and the update check (which sends the app version).
Privacy
Signed & notarized
Opens with a normal double-click: no "unidentified developer" warning, no Open Anyway, no Terminal. Universal for Apple Silicon and Intel, notarized by Apple.
No warnings
Built for everyone
Fully keyboard-driven (the treemap, drill-in, suggestions and all) with VoiceOver labels throughout. The UI meets WCAG 2.1 AA contrast in light and dark and respects Reduce Motion.
WCAG 2.1 AA
Speaks 13 languages
Heftr auto-detects your Mac's system language on first launch (English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Dutch, Brazilian Portuguese, Polish, Turkish, Russian, Japanese, Korean or Simplified Chinese), or pick one yourself anytime from the flag picker in the header. Dark and light mode too: follow macOS, or pin either one from inside the app.
13 languages · dark & light
04 What Heftr reads
PDF
Photos: JPG · PNG · HEIC · TIFF
Word: .docx
Excel: .xlsx
PowerPoint: .pptx
ZIP & EPUB
Video: MP4 · MOV · M4V
Apps & folders
Anything else → .zip
06 Pricing
Free. For everyone.
Personal use is free forever: the full app, no key, no account, no watermarks. Free for commercial use at work too, no license required.
Personal
Free forever
For individuals and personal projects
- The full X-ray: every file type, verdict and fix
- Office/ZIP, PDF, image and target-size shrinking
- Folder treemap, batch and copy-report
- 100% on-device, nothing uploaded
- No account, no nag screens
- Free updates forever
Business
Free commercial too
Free at work too
- Everything in Personal
- Use commercially at work
- Free for commercial use
- Free updates forever
- Supports solo indie development
Free for everyone: personal use, commercial use, no license required.
07 Download & install
Get set up in seconds.
Download the app and drag it into Applications. That's it. No Terminal, no Homebrew, no sign-up.
Version 1.3.2 · Released September 28, 2026 · Free updates forever
macOS 13 Ventura or later, including macOS 27 Golden Gate · Apple Silicon or Intel
A single universal app: everything Heftr needs to inspect and shrink your files is built right in. Nothing else to install.
Opens with a double-click
Heftr is signed with an Apple Developer ID and notarized by Apple, so it opens cleanly the first time: no
Open Anyway trip through System Settings, no Terminal. Open the DMG, drag Heftr into Applications, and launch it.Check the file you downloaded
Heftr is signed with an Apple Developer ID and notarized by Apple, and macOS checks that every time you open it. That is the check that catches a file altered on its way to you. To confirm it yourself, compare the SHA-256 of your copy with the one published for the
Heftr.dmg this page serves.SHA-256 checksum
Published checksum
Run this on your download and compare
shasum -a 256 ~/Downloads/Heftr.dmg
Or have your Mac compare them for you: save Heftr.dmg.sha256 beside the download and run shasum -a 256 -c Heftr.dmg.sha256.
08 FAQ
Common questions.
Is Heftr really free?
Personal use is free forever: no account, no trial timer, no watermarks, and the full app. If you use Heftr at work, free for commercial use at work too, with no license to buy.
What does Heftr actually do?
Drop any file and Heftr shows you a breakdown of exactly what's taking up the space (images, fonts, content, media, overhead), a plain-English verdict of why it's big, and a one-click smaller copy where there's a safe one. Every breakdown reconciles to the real on-disk size, so the segments always add up to what Finder shows you.
Will Heftr change my original file?
Never. Heftr is non-destructive by design: every fix writes a new (smaller) or (compressed) copy next to the original, and existing files are never overwritten. Your original is left exactly as it was.
How does the PDF shrink work? Will my text get blurry?
No. Heftr downsamples the embedded raster images (usually photos) to about 150 DPI using a Quartz image filter, while the text and vector graphics stay vector: they are never rasterized, so the copy is smaller but still crisp and selectable. Heftr shows the projected size from a real dry-run first, and refuses gracefully when a PDF can't be shrunk safely (text-only, already efficient, or password-protected).
What kinds of files can Heftr inspect and shrink?
Office and ZIP files (docx, xlsx, pptx, zip, epub), PDFs, images (jpg, png, heic, tiff), video and audio, app bundles and folders, and anything else. It has a working one-click fix for Office/ZIP media, images, PDF images, and a compress-to-zip for generic files. Video is diagnosed and handed to Squishr for the actual re-encode; folders get a read-only treemap.
Can Heftr compress video?
Heftr diagnoses video (it shows per-track Video vs Audio vs container sizing and a bitrate verdict), but it hands the actual re-encode to Squishr, its sibling app built for that. Heftr never re-encodes video pixels itself.
How does the business license work?
Heftr is free for personal and commercial use. No license key needed. If you find it useful at work, you can support development from the tip jar at the bottom of the page.
Does Heftr upload my files anywhere?
No. Every analysis and fix runs entirely on your Mac. Nothing you open is ever uploaded, and there's no account and no usage analytics. The only times Heftr contacts our server are if you enter a business license key (to validate it) or if the weekly update check runs (which sends the app version). You can turn the update check off.
What is folder mode?
Drop a folder or an app bundle and Heftr draws an interactive, fully accessible treemap (a mini-DaisyDisk) of what's eating the space, biggest first, alongside a ranked list and the biggest individual files anywhere in the tree. Click any block to drill in; a breadcrumb walks you back. The scan streams a live item count and never blocks the window.
Can I get a file under a specific size?
Yes. Target-size mode ("get it under X MB") picks the gentlest fix intensity that still fits for images, PDFs and Office/ZIP media, and tells you the projected result before writing anything. If the target can't be reached safely, it says so and saves the smallest copy it could manage.
Can I stop a shrink once it's started?
Yes. A batch shrink walks every file one full re-encode at a time, and a fit-to-target re-encodes once per quality step. Either can take minutes. The button becomes Stop, and Escape works too. A stopped batch keeps and counts everything it already finished; a stopped fit writes nothing at all, because a "smaller" copy from a quality step Heftr never finished choosing is not the file you asked for.
Will macOS warn me about an unidentified developer?
No. Heftr is signed with an Apple Developer ID and notarized by Apple, so it opens with a normal double-click the first time: no Open Anyway dance, no Terminal.
How do I update Heftr?
Heftr updates itself. It checks about once a week and, when a new version is out, shows you what changed and offers to install it in place. The download is signature-checked, and one that doesn't verify is refused. You can also check on demand, turn the automatic check off in the update panel, or download the DMG from this page and drag it into Applications yourself. Your preferences carry over.
Is there a Windows version?
Yes, in beta. Heftr for Windows runs on Windows 10 (version 1809 or later) and Windows 11, 64-bit, and installs without admin rights.