Install, update and uninstall

squish installs for your user only, in a few seconds, without an admin password.

#Install

Open Terminal (on a Mac: ⌘ Space, type Terminal, Enter) and paste:

curl -fsSL https://get.squish-compressor.com | bash

Then open a new Terminal window and type squish.

Want to read the script before running it? It is short:

curl -fsSL https://get.squish-compressor.com | less

#What the installer does

• Downloads the squish script from the main branch on GitHub and puts it in ~/.local/bin/squish.
• If ~/.local/bin is not on your PATH yet, adds one line to ~/.zshrc (and to ~/.bashrc or ~/.bash_profile if you have them). That is why a new window is needed.
• Sends one anonymous ping to count installs (see Privacy).

Nothing else is installed at this point. Tools like FFmpeg are only offered the first time squish needs them.

#Requirements

• macOS (any recent version, Apple Silicon or Intel) or Linux, with bash 3.2 or later and curl. The bash built into macOS is fine.
• FFmpeg for videos, audio and most images. If it is missing, squish offers brew install ffmpeg. On a Mac without Homebrew it offers a standalone FFmpeg (about 20 MB, checked against a SHA-256 fingerprint) kept in ~/.squish. On Linux: sudo apt install ffmpeg or your distribution's package.
• Ghostscript for PDFs: brew install ghostscript or sudo apt install ghostscript.
• pngquant (optional) for much smaller PNGs: brew install pngquant.

On a Mac, JPEG and HEIC photos are handled by sips, which is built into macOS. Without FFmpeg, squish can still compress those photos.

#Update

squish --update

Downloads the latest version from GitHub and replaces the installed one. squish --version shows the version you have.

#Uninstall

squish --uninstall

Removes the command and the ~/.squish folder (the standalone FFmpeg, if it was downloaded). Your compressed files stay where they are. The PATH line in ~/.zshrc is harmless and can be deleted by hand.

#Install from a copy of the repository

git clone https://github.com/romainmaxxing/squish-mac-compressor.git
cd squish-mac-compressor
bash install.sh

When run from a folder that contains squish, the installer copies that local file instead of downloading it.

#Privacy

squish itself never connects to anything except to download a tool you agreed to install, or the new version when you run --update.

The installer sends one anonymous request when an install succeeds, with only your system (macOS or Linux), processor type (arm64 or x86_64) and the squish version. No IP address is stored. It is how we know how many people use squish. To skip it:

curl -fsSL https://get.squish-compressor.com | SQUISH_NO_PING=1 bash