TinyPNG

[shmulvad 10]

An Alfred 4 workflow for quickly compressing and resizing images using TinyPNG. Simply select a collection of images or a folder in Finder and activate the workflow.

Installation and Getting Started

1. Install alfred-tinypng workflow.
2. All further updates are handled automatically.

You will need to configure the workflow with an API key from TinyPNG. Type tinypng_api to get a link to the pagewhere you can get your API key and to actually set the key when you have gotten it.

Usage

Select either a folder, image file or a number of image files in Finder. Afterward, open Alfred and type tinypng. You are presented with the following choices:

Choose an item based on what you want. When selected, the workflow will start compressing/resizing the image(s). After it is done, they will be saved to the same directory and with the same filename as the original image. The original image will be preserved with .bak prepended before the file extension. I.e. if compressing img.jpg, this will now become img.bak.jpg and the compressed image will be saved as img.jpg.

Refer to the TinyPNG documentation for a full explanation of the different resizing options.

Why? Another TinyPNG workflow already exists

• It doesn't support choosing the files based on what is selected in Finder (which I personally prefer).
• Only simple compression is supported whereas all TinyPNG compressions and resizing options are supported in this workflow.
• It seems to be abandoned by the creator (has not been updated since 2015).

Credits

The workflow makes use of the following:

• OneUpdater by vitorgalvao for handling automatic updates.
• TinyPNG Python API

 

Code and more can be viewed on the associated GitHub-repo. If you find this workflow useful, stars are appreciated.

Edited August 15, 2020 by shmulvad
Add GitHub link

[mixterdee 15]

I've used the old workflow for years and as you mentioned it hasn't been updated so thought I'd give yours a try. Unfortunately I can't enter my API key. Once I click on Enter/Change API Key it switches to the default search. Can you suggest what could be causing the issue?

Edited August 12, 2020 by mixterdee
Adding an image

[shmulvad 10]

1 minute ago, mixterdee said:

I've used the old workflow for years and as you mentioned it hasn't been updated so thought I'd give yours a try. Unfortunately I can't enter my API key. Once I click on Enter/Change API Key it switches to the default search. Can you suggest what could be causing the issue?

 

Sorry about that. This workflow uses Python 3. Does it work if you do "which python3" in your Terminal and set that as the path for the variable "pythonPath" in the workflow?

[DaniTz 0]

doesn't work for me. I've tried for at least an hour, ending up installing different versions of python 3 on a new M1 mac mini. I really wish for it to work but it doesn't. First notification is a starting the compression/resizing then another one with Status which is blank and nothing happens. I would appreciate some help

 

Thanks,

Dan

[shmulvad 10]

On 1/8/2021 at 12:20 AM, DaniTz said:

doesn't work for me. I've tried for at least an hour, ending up installing different versions of python 3 on a new M1 mac mini. I really wish for it to work but it doesn't. First notification is a starting the compression/resizing then another one with Status which is blank and nothing happens. I would appreciate some help

 

Thanks,

Dan

 

Hi Dan. Sorry, but I do not have a M1 machine to test on. I am not sure what causes the issue based on your information, but since at least some of the workflow works based on your information, I think it is not a problem with your Python version and something else is causing it. Can you check the log using the Workflow Debugger and report back on what you see?

[deanishe 1,471]

19 minutes ago, shmulvad said:

I think it is not a problem with your Python version and something else is causing it

 

Out of interest, why have you written the workflow to use a custom Anaconda installation instead of /usr/bin/python3 that's part of macOS?

Edited January 11 by deanishe

[shmulvad 10]

Just now, deanishe said:

 

Out of interest, why have you written the workflow to use a custom Anaconda installation instead of one of the system Pythons that everybody has?

 

It is just the installation I use per default on my personal system if I do not set up a new separate environment for a Python project. I wrote the workflow because I personally had a use case for it and afterward thought I might as well release it publicly now that the workflow existed anyway. When I tried using just "python" from within Alfred to call it, it didn't work on my system (even though "python --version" gives me 3.8.5 in a regular terminal session, even when no conda env is activated). It could be fixed by using the absolute path, so I just did that. I can see it also works (on my system at least) when using "python3" which I agree would have been a better choice as the default.

[deanishe 1,471]

1 hour ago, shmulvad said:

When I tried using just "python" from within Alfred to call it […] even though "python --version" gives me 3.8.5 in a regular terminal session

 

On macOS python is Python 2 (/usr/bin/python), which is what you get in Alfred.

 

You’ve done something to your shell’s PATH to make python point to a Python 3 executable, but Mac apps don’t use your shell environment.

In workflows, I think it’s generally best to hardcode /usr/bin/python or /usr/bin/python3, so you always get a known version regardless of what you or users have done to their environment.

 

Having the python command run Python 3 is a bit dubious, imo, because it contradicts what the OS does.

[Geoffrey 2]

Hey mate. Thanks for creating this workflow. It sounds exactly like something that would be very handy in my work processes, as I deal with image compression a lot. Unfortunately, I'm running into an error when running an error shown below:

 

[14:49:56.955] TinyPNG[Script Filter] Queuing argument ''
[14:49:57.122] TinyPNG[Script Filter] Script with argv '(null)' finished
[14:49:57.126] TinyPNG[Script Filter] {"items": [{"title": "COMPRESS: Compress image(s)", "subtitle": "Compresses image(s)", "arg": "COMPRESS", "uid": "COMPRESS"}, {"title": "SCALE: Scale prop. down by *either* height or width", "subtitle": "Usage: I.e. \"w800\" or \"h500\"", "valid": false, "arg": "SCALE", "uid": "SCALE", "icon": {"path": "scale.png"}}, {"title": "FIT: Scale prop. down within width and height", "subtitle": "Usage: \"width height\", i.e. \"800 500\"", "valid": false, "arg": "FIT", "uid": "FIT", "icon": {"path": "fit.png"}}, {"title": "COVER: Scale and crop down to exactly width and height", "subtitle": "Usage: \"width height\", i.e. \"800 500\"", "valid": false, "arg": "COVER", "uid": "COVER", "icon": {"path": "cover.png"}}, {"title": "THUMB: Advanced scale and crop to exactly width and height", "subtitle": "Usage: \"width height\", i.e. \"800 500\"", "valid": false, "arg": "THUMB", "uid": "THUMB", "icon": {"path": "thumb.png"}}], "variables": {"axis": 0, "len": 0, "width": 0, "height": 0}}
[14:49:59.029] TinyPNG[Script Filter] Processing complete
[14:49:59.038] TinyPNG[Script Filter] Passing output 'COMPRESS' to Conditional
[14:49:59.041] TinyPNG[Conditional] Processing complete
[14:49:59.043] TinyPNG[Conditional] Passing output 'COMPRESS' to Run Script
[14:49:59.045] TinyPNG[Script Filter] Passing output 'COMPRESS' to Run Script
[14:50:00.075] TinyPNG[Run Script] Processing complete
[14:50:00.087] TinyPNG[Run Script] Passing output '"/Users/geoffrey/Desktop/achtergrond-tenniszaal.png:" COMPRESS ********************** 0 0 0 0
' to Post Notification
[14:50:00.090] TinyPNG[Run Script] Passing output '"/Users/geoffrey/Desktop/achtergrond-tenniszaal.png:" COMPRESS ********************** 0 0 0 0
' to Run Script
[14:50:00.194] ERROR: TinyPNG[Run Script] Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "tiny_upload.py", line 5, in <module>
    import tinify
  File "/Users/geoffrey/Dropbox/Alfred/Alfred.alfredpreferences/workflows/user.workflow.F8ABF891-4B1F-4AC7-8D88-44C494B28EA9/tinify/__init__.py", line 92, in <module>
    from .client import Client
  File "/Users/geoffrey/Dropbox/Alfred/Alfred.alfredpreferences/workflows/user.workflow.F8ABF891-4B1F-4AC7-8D88-44C494B28EA9/tinify/client.py", line 7, in <module>
    import requests
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'requests'
[14:50:00.211] TinyPNG[Run Script] Processing complete
[14:50:00.213] TinyPNG[Run Script] Passing output '' to Post Notification

 

Also, as a little suggestion for improvement: could you make the automatic backup image an optional setting? In my workflow, I only need to compress the image, not create a backup copy (as I can easily get that back myself if something goes wrong).

 

I hope you could help me out with this. Thanks a bunch and have a great weekend.

[deanishe 1,471]

4 hours ago, Geoffrey said:

I'm running into an error when running an error shown below

 

The workflow needs the requests library, but @shmulvad has forgotten to include it.

[Geoffrey 2]

18 hours ago, deanishe said:

 

The workflow needs the requests library, but @shmulvad has forgotten to include it.

 

Ah, thanks a lot! Installing that library fixed the issue. For anyone else running into the same issue, follow the install instructions listed on this page: https://docs.python-requests.org/en/master/user/install/ check deanishe's solution below.

Edited April 11 by Geoffrey

[deanishe 1,471]

A better solution is to run /usr/bin/python -m pip install --user --upgrade requests

 

That installs it in your user directory, so it won't be deleted by OS upgrades and you won't need elevated privileges to install it.

 

The proper solution is for @shmulvad to bundle it with the workflow, however. You can do that with pip’s --target flag: /usr/bin/python -m pip install --target . requests

 

[shmulvad 10]

Thanks for making me aware of the unbundled library. Good to hear you got it solved for now, but as deanishe says the proper solution is for it to be bundled.

I am busy with exams at the moment but will try to release a new version where this is fixed soon. I will probably look into your other suggestion as well, but no promises on when.

[deanishe 1,471]

Good luck with the exams!

[shmulvad 10]

@Geoffrey I've released version 1.0.2 where the issue regarding bundling of the requests library is fixed and now you can also set a workflow variable KEEP_BACKUPS to either True or False (True per default) that determines whether or not to keep the .bak files.

[Geoffrey 2]

@shmulvad Thank you very much! I'm already enjoying the workflow a lot and these fixes really are the icing on the cake. Great work! 🙂