Last updated: October 18, 2026
Cloud Media Shrinker is a Mac app by Daniel Yakobian. It helps you review and compress photos and videos stored in Apple Photos or folders you choose.
Cloud Media Shrinker processes photos and videos on your Mac. The developer does not receive your photos, videos, filenames, captions, location information or library contents. The app has no advertising, tracking or analytics SDKs and does not require a Cloud Media Shrinker account.
Apple Photos access lets the app read your library, create compressed copies and remove items you select. The app requests permission before accessing Photos. macOS asks for confirmation when removing Photos items.
To measure sizes without downloading originals on older macOS versions, you can select your Photos library. Cloud Media Shrinker reads its local size records through a read-only database connection and remembers the permission with a read-only bookmark. It does not modify the Photos database.
Folder access is limited to the locations you choose. For the Mac App Store edition, the app stores security-scoped bookmarks locally so it can reopen those locations. Photos automation permission is used to copy titles, captions and keywords, and to show selected items in Photos.
Apple Photos may download media from iCloud when you preview or compress it. Google Drive support uses Google Drive for desktop and folders you choose in Finder. Google Drive handles its own downloads, uploads, account information and cloud storage under Google's policies. Cloud Media Shrinker does not request your Google password or connect directly to your Google account.
The app saves settings, folder locations, a library measurement cache and a history of compression and deletion operations on your Mac. These can include filenames, item identifiers, file sizes and processing settings. They are not sent to the developer. Removing a folder from the app's list does not delete its files.
The interface communicates with the app through a server bound only to this Mac's loopback address. The Mac App Store edition receives updates through the App Store and does not check GitHub for updates. The website download checks GitHub for newer releases unless you disable automatic checks. GitHub receives the normal connection information needed to answer that request, such as your IP address; no media or library information is included.
The project website is hosted separately and uses a visit counter. Its hosting and counter services may process website traffic information. The counter is not included in the app.
If you choose to report a problem through GitHub or email, the information you provide is handled by the service you use. Do not include private media or library history unless you intend to share it. Contact the developer or report a privacy concern through the project's support page.
You can revoke Photos and Automation access in System Settings. Local app data can be removed from the app's support storage; this does not remove your original or compressed media. The developer has no server copy of your library to delete.