An alternative to uploading a video to convert it
Maskelyne converts video and audio on your own Mac with AVFoundation. A two-gigabyte file is not a problem, because it never has to go anywhere — and where the formats allow it, the video is remuxed rather than re-encoded, so nothing is lost.
What an online tool has to do first
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It has to receive your file. A web service cannot work on something it does not have, so the first step is always a copy of your file leaving your machine and arriving on a computer you do not control.
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It has to keep it long enough to work. However short that window is, and whatever the policy says about deleting it afterwards, the file was somewhere else while the work happened.
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It has to stay paid for. A tool that lives on someone's server stops existing when that server does — along with whatever you were relying on it to keep doing.
What this does instead
Drop a file in and name the form you want back. Maskelyne converts it here on your Mac, shows you the size of the result before it starts, and — where the codec already suits the container — copies the streams across untouched rather than encoding them again.
- Video and audio, converted on your Mac
- Audio lifted out of a video
- Lossless remux where it fits
The other five
- Frankensheet — Contact sheets without handing over the folder
- Changeling — A CloudConvert alternative that works with the Wi-Fi off
- Nepenthe — Redaction that does not start with an upload
- Mordant — A remove.bg alternative that never sees your photo
- Imprimatur — A QR Code generator with nothing to keep paying for
Product names are the trademarks of their respective owners. Poison Powder is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to any of them. They are named here only to say what this app is an alternative to.