Permute 4.0.11 for macOS

Drag in a video, pick 'Audio Only' from the format menu, and Permute strips the audio track into an MP3 or AAC file without fuss. That kind of directness runs through the whole app—it’s built by a single developer who clearly values clarity over clutter.

Jobs Permute handles well

• Adding subtitles to video. Got an MKV with missing captions? Drop the video and the SRT file together, and Permute bakes the subtitle track right in.
• Turning video into audio. Pull a podcast from a conference talk, or grab the soundtrack from a screen recording. One drag, one menu choice, done.
• Swapping image formats. A folder full of HEIC photos becomes JPEGs, PNGs, or WebP images in a batch. No export dialogs, no quality sliders unless you want them.
• Converting between audio formats. WAV to MP3, FLAC to ALAC—whatever your car stereo or media library expects, Permute rewraps it quickly.

FFmpeg power hidden behind a single-window dropper

The heavy lifting relies on FFmpeg libraries, which means format support runs deep. But the interface hides all that complexity behind a single-window design that feels like a kitchen tool: you drop things in, tell it what shape you need, and it gets to work.

Sensible video compression defaults that avoid wrecking the picture

Can I squeeze down a video without wrecking the picture? That's the one I hear most. Permute doesn't give you a hundred knobs you'll never touch—the defaults are tuned sensibly. If you do need to tweak, the gear icon opens settings where you can dial the quality slider or set a target file size. On Apple Silicon, the encode runs fast enough that experimenting doesn't feel like punishment.

Does it handle the weird one-off formats? Mostly, yes. The FFmpeg backbone means it chews through things like WebM, OGV, and FLAC without complaint. I've thrown old AVI files from a camcorder at it and watched them land as clean H.265 MP4s. If the file opens in VLC, Permute can probably convert it.

Will it batch-process without babysitting? Drop forty files, set the output format once, hit start. It queues them up and runs through the list. You can even mix types—some videos, some images—and Permute figures out which settings apply to which.

Right-click a file to compress straight from the Finder

Permute plays nice as a middle step. I'll rough-cut something in QuickTime, drag the result into Permute to compress for sharing, then hand it off to AirDrop. No export labyrinth.

The Services menu integration means you can right-click a file in Finder and send it straight to Permute without opening the app first. That's handy when you're deep in a folder and just want a fast MP3 from a video. The Share extension works the same way from Photos or Mail—select, share to Permute, and the converted file lands wherever you tell it.

If you stitch videos with 9 permute 3 clips in the merge tab, the joined file can then pass through the same conversion pipeline as anything else. And when you permute 3 download files from a camera's SD card right into the app, the whole round-trip stays local—no cloud upload, no waiting on someone else's server.

• macOS 26 or later
• Apple Silicon Mac