Help
Getting started
Ziggle is one app for the everyday things you do with files: shrink a video, convert photos, sign a PDF, join recordings, turn a Word file into a PDF. Everything happens on your Mac. Nothing is uploaded, and your original files are never changed unless you ask.
The three steps
- Drop files or a folder onto the window (or the bolt in the menu bar), or pick a tool from the sidebar.
- Choose what to do. Ziggle shows an estimate of the size and time before anything runs.
- Press the big button. New files are saved next to the originals or in one folder — your choice — and Undo is one click away.
Many files at once
Drop a whole folder and Ziggle works on everything inside it, keeping your folders as they are. Files it can't use are left alone and counted on the Done screen.
While a job runs
You don't have to wait. Open another tool, drop more files or go Home: the job keeps running and shows at the bottom of the window with its progress, a Cancel button and Show to bring it back.
Undo
Every job can be undone from the Done screen or from Activity (⌘3). New files go to the Bin; if you chose to replace the originals, they come back from the Bin. Files you changed after the job are left alone.
The tools
All 56, grouped like the app's sidebar. Each one has its own page with more detail.
Video
- Make video smaller
For email, WhatsApp and Slack
Pick how small, see a before-and-after preview, and get a file that still looks good. Videos that are already small are left as they are, so nothing ever gets bigger.
- Trim video
Cut the start or end
Drag the handles or use the player to choose the part you want. When nothing else changes, Ziggle copies the video as it is: no quality lost, done in seconds.
- Resize video
720p, 1080p or custom
Make videos smaller for sharing or the web. Ziggle never makes a video bigger than it was.
- Crop & rotate video
Fix sideways or badly framed video
Turn a sideways phone video the right way up, or crop to square, 16:9, 9:16 or 4:5 for social media.
- Change video speed
Faster or slower, voices sound normal
From 0.25× to 4×. Voices keep their normal pitch, so they don't sound like chipmunks.
- Join clips
Put several videos together
Drag clips into order and join them into one video. Different shapes are fitted neatly, with black bars where needed.
- Replace sound
Use music or a voice-over instead
Swap the soundtrack for music or a voice-over, or mix it with the original sound.
- Add subtitles
Burn captions into the video
Add .srt or .vtt captions so they show everywhere, even on phones and social media. Works with any language.
- Convert video
MP4, MOV, WebM, MKV, AVI or WMV
Turn MOV into MP4 (and back), make WebM for websites, or MKV, AVI and WMV for older players. Opens all of them too.
- Split video
Into equal parts, or at chosen times
Cut a long recording into equal parts, a part every few minutes, or at the times you type. Parts are copied without re-encoding when possible, so it's fast and nothing loses quality.
- Make a GIF
Short looping animation
Pick a part of a video, choose the size and smoothness, and get a looping GIF.
Audio
- Record a voice note
Saved straight to your Mac
One click to record, pause and save. Tick a box to also get a text version, made on your Mac.
- Trim audio
Cut the start or end
Listen, drag the handles, save. Perfect for ringtones and long recordings.
- Clean up audio
Less background noise, even volume
Reduce noise, hum and rumble and even out the volume of podcasts, lectures and phone recordings.
- Get audio from video
Save the sound of any video
Drop a folder of videos and get their soundtracks, ready for your music app.
- Convert audio
MP3, M4A, WAV, FLAC, OGG or WMA
Convert many files at once, with a simple quality choice. Opus, AIFF and Apple Lossless too.
- Make audio smaller
Smaller sound files that sound the same
Pick Smallest, Balanced or High. Each file keeps its format; files that wouldn't get smaller are left alone.
- Join sound files
Many recordings, one file
Drag recordings into order and join them, with nothing, a short pause or a crossfade between them.
- Split sound file
Into equal parts, or at chosen times
Cut a long lecture or podcast into parts, in the same format as the original.
Images
- Convert photos
WebP, JPEG, PNG, HEIC and more
Turn iPhone HEIC photos into JPEG, make WebP for websites, turn SVG logos into pictures, and keep folders exactly as they are.
- Make photos smaller
Smaller files that look the same
See the size before you start. Photos that can't get smaller are left alone.
- Resize photos
Change the width and height
Pick the longest side and resize hundreds of photos at once, never making them bigger.
- Crop photos
Keep just the part you want
Drag a crop box with presets for square, 4:5, 16:9, 9:16 and 3:2, or crop a whole folder to one shape from the centre. Pixels are kept exactly as they are.
- Edit photos
Brightness, contrast, warmth, sharpness
Simple sliders with a live before-and-after, plus Auto-enhance. The same changes go onto every photo you drop.
- Annotate
Arrows, boxes, text, steps and blur
Mark up screenshots and PDFs with arrows, boxes, highlights, text, numbered steps and blur. On PDFs the marks stay editable in Preview.
- Remove location & camera info
Share photos without hidden details
Strip GPS location, place names and camera details so nobody can see where a photo was taken.
- Remove background
Cut out the subject
Get a see-through PNG of the person, pet or product in a photo, made on your Mac.
- Add a background
A colour, a blur, or another picture
Put the cut-out subject on plain white or any colour, a soft blur of the original, or a photo of your choice. Great for product shots and profile pictures.
- Photo to Word
A Word document with the picture on a page
Each photo becomes a Word file with the picture fitted on an A4 page, the right way up.
- Combine PDFs
Many PDFs (and photos) into one
Drag files into order and get one PDF. Photos become pages too.
- Split PDF
One PDF into several
Every page on its own, every few pages, or the pages you type, like 1-3, 5.
- Reorder & rotate pages
Drag pages into place
See every page, drag them into order and turn the sideways ones.
- Delete pages
Remove pages you don't need
Click the pages to delete and save. Your original stays as it is.
- Make PDF smaller
So it fits in an email
Shrink scanned and photo-heavy PDFs. If it can't get smaller, it's left alone.
- Sign PDF
Draw it, type it or use a picture
Draw with the trackpad, type your name, or use a photo of your signature: the paper is removed so only the ink stays. Place, resize and turn it; signatures are saved for next time.
- Redact PDF
Black out words for real
Draw boxes, or type words and let Ziggle find every phone number and email address. What's under a box is removed from the file, not just covered.
- Add a password
Only people with the password can open it
Protect a PDF with a password. Ziggle never saves or remembers it.
- Remove a password
When you know the password
Save a copy without the password, for PDFs you're allowed to open.
- Photos to PDF
One photo per page
Turn scans and photos into one tidy PDF, on A4, Letter or photo-shaped pages.
On-device AI
- Speech to text
Subtitles or a text file, privately
Recordings and videos become .srt subtitles or text, using Apple's on-device speech models. One more click burns the subtitles into the video.
- Copy text from images
From photos, scans and PDFs
Get the text out of screenshots, photos of documents and scans, or make a searchable PDF.
- Summarise
Short version of long text
A short paragraph, the main points, or points and to-dos, made by Apple Intelligence on your Mac.
- Translate
Text, documents and subtitles, offline
Translate documents and subtitle files with Apple's offline translation. Subtitles keep their timings.
Files
- Rename many files
Numbered names with a live preview
Find and replace, add text before or after, number files and change letter case, with a live preview. Undo puts every old name back.
- Convert documents
Word, PDF, Pages, text, Markdown and more
Word, RTF, OpenDocument, HTML, text, Markdown, PDF and Pages in; PDF, Word, Rich Text, OpenDocument, web page, text, Markdown, e-book, PowerPoint or pictures of the pages out. PDF to Word reads scans with on-device text recognition.
- Convert spreadsheets
CSV, Excel, OpenDocument, or a readable PDF
CSV and TSV to Excel and back, OpenDocument, Numbers to PDF, and a readable table per sheet as PDF.
- Remove hidden info
From photos, PDFs, videos and sound
Location, device, author, dates and comments are taken out of any file. The picture and sound are copied as they are, so nothing loses quality.
- Convert subtitles
SRT ↔ VTT, or just the words
Turn subtitle files between SRT and VTT, or get the plain text without the times.
- Make an archive
ZIP, TAR or TAR.GZ
Pack files and folders into one archive, with an optional password for ZIP. Uses what your Mac already has.
- Open an archive
ZIP, TAR, GZIP, RAR and 7z
Open any archive into a folder with its name, next to it or wherever you choose. RAR and 7z open too.
Where files go
Before a job runs you pick one of three places. Ziggle remembers your last choice for loose files and for folders separately.
Next to each original
The new file is saved in the same folder as its source. The default when you drop a folder.
All in one folder
Everything goes into a folder you pick (Downloads › Ziggle › today's date, unless you change it). Tick "Keep the same folders inside" to recreate your folder structure there.
Replace the originals
The new file takes the original's place and the original goes to the Bin, never deleted outright. Ziggle asks you to confirm, and only replaces a file after its new version was saved. On drives without a Bin (some external and network drives) the originals are kept and you're told.
When a name is already taken
"Add a number" (beach 2.webp) is the default. You can also skip the file or replace the one that's there. A file that belongs to the running job is never replaced.
Nothing is written until the end
Every output is made in a working folder first and moved into place only when it succeeded. Cancel a job and nothing at all is saved.
Shortcuts
| Quick search: any tool by name | ⌘K |
| Home | ⌘1 |
| Recipes | ⌘2 |
| Activity | ⌘3 |
| Open files | ⌘O |
| Open a folder | ⇧⌘O |
| Run the job | ⌘↩ |
| Cancel / close | Esc |
| Back (also a two-finger swipe to the right) | ⌘[ |
| Bring Ziggle up from anywhere | ⌃⌥Z |
| Ziggle Help | ⌘? |
In editors
Arrow keys move a signature, crop box or mark; Shift + arrows resize it; Delete removes it; [ and ] turn a signature; ⌘Z undoes in Annotate. Space on a page selects it.
From Finder
Right-click a file › Services › Ziggle to compress or convert without opening the app first. Drop files on the Dock icon or the menu bar bolt any time.
When something doesn't work
"Ziggle's video helper is missing"
Some formats (WebM, MKV, AVI, MP3, OGG, FLAC…) need the helper that ships inside Ziggle. If it's missing, the download was damaged: reinstall Ziggle and it comes back.
Smart tools are greyed out
Speech to text, Copy text, Summarise and Translate need macOS 26 or later. Summarise also needs Apple Intelligence turned on in System Settings › Apple Intelligence & Siri, on a Mac that supports it. Speech and translation languages are downloaded once by macOS; Ziggle tells you when that's happening.
A file was skipped
Ziggle skips files that are already in the format you asked for, files that wouldn't get any smaller, and PDFs without a password when removing one. The Done screen says why, for each file.
A file failed
The Done screen shows a plain reason. The usual ones: the file is damaged or not really the type its name says; a PDF needs its password; a video has no sound (for sound tools); the destination folder can't be written to.
The result isn't what I wanted
Press Undo on the Done screen or in Activity. Then try again with different settings; the originals are untouched.
Quitting while a job runs
Ziggle asks first. Quitting cancels the job cleanly and saves nothing half-done; if files are already being saved, it waits for that to finish.
Licence
One licence works on one Mac at a time. Move it by deactivating in Settings › Licence on the old Mac. A failed activation never locks you out of what you've already paid for. See also Refunds.
Contact
Stuck, found a bug, or want Ziggle to do something it doesn't yet? Write to support@ziggle.app. We read everything and usually reply within one working day.
What helps us help you
- Which tool, and what you dropped in (type of file, roughly how big).
- What you expected and what happened instead, in a sentence.
- The version of Ziggle and macOS (Settings › About). Never send us a file unless you want to.
Ziggle doesn't collect anything about you or your files on its own, so this email is the only way we'd ever learn about a problem.