Inside Switcheroo: Convert a File by Dropping It on a Wheel

Switcheroo is a small Mac utility from 1dot1 for the moment a file is in the wrong format. The usual answers are a website that wants the file uploaded, or an app with a window, a file picker and a Convert button. Switcheroo has neither: hold Shift while dragging the file, drop it on a wheel of formats, and the converted copy appears beside the original. This teardown walks through the app screen by screen and explains the decisions behind each part.

The wheel, not a window

Holding Shift during a drag summons a glass wheel under the pointer. Six petals carry the formats the dropped file can become, and the hub names the target. Moving over a petal fills it solid black; letting go converts. Letting go over the hub cancels.

A wheel suits a drag better than a list. The pointer is already moving and already holding something, so the targets should sit around it at roughly equal distance rather than in a column that has to be read top to bottom. Six is the number of petals that stay comfortably wide enough to hit without aiming; anything more goes on a second page behind the hub.

Two ways to summon it

The first is to press and hold on a file, in Finder or on the Desktop, for about half a second. The wheel opens around the file, its name in the middle, and the pointer is already where it needs to be. Nothing is dragged anywhere.

The second is to hold Shift while dragging, which suits files already in motion or a selection of several at once. Both end the same way: a petal, a release, a converted file beside the original.

Finding out which file is under the pointer is the awkward part. macOS will say, through the accessibility interface, but only for an app the owner has allowed, and the answer depends on how the window is drawn: an icon in Finder reports its own path, while a row in list view does not, so the app falls back to asking Finder what is selected. Both routes are wrapped in the same rule: if neither can name a real file, nothing opens at all. A wheel around the wrong file would be worse than no wheel.

Getting out is deliberately easy. Escape closes it, releasing over the middle or away from the ring cancels, and a right-click or a two-finger tap dismisses it at any point, including while the button is still held.

Only the formats that make sense

The petals change with what was dropped. An image offers PNG, JPEG, HEIC, TIFF, GIF and PDF; a PDF offers images at 150 or 300 DPI and plain text; a video offers MP4, MOV, an animated GIF and audio-only M4A; audio offers M4A, WAV, AIFF and CAF; a folder offers ZIP, TAR and TAR.GZ, and an archive offers to unpack.

Everything runs through what macOS already ships: ImageIO for pictures, PDFKit for documents, AVFoundation for video and audio, and the same zip and tar tools that come with the system. That is the whole reason there is no upload, no account and no bundled converter binary.

It also sets the limits honestly. macOS can read WebP but not write it, so WebP is an input only. macOS has no MP3 encoder, so there is no MP3 export; M4A covers the same ground. Both are left off the wheel rather than offered and then failing.

Hold Option for the tools

Not every job is a format change, so the same wheel swaps to eleven tools, six petals to a page: crop, resize, rotate, compress, strip, trim on the first page; split, snapshot, speed, merge and unpack on the second. The hub turns the page, exactly as it does for formats.

Anything with settings opens a panel beneath the wheel. Crop shows the picture with the crop drawn on it as a hairline, the surroundings dimmed, and the resulting size counting in pixels as the ratio or the sliders change, because a crop you cannot see is a guess. Trim, split and snapshot show the frame at whatever moment the controls point at, so the cut is chosen on the picture rather than on a number.

Speed is the one with a caveat, and the panel says so: video and audio stay in sync, but the pitch is not corrected, so voices shift as they would on tape.

Beside the original, never instead of it

Converted files are written next to the source, with a number added when a file of that name already exists. Nothing is replaced, moved to the Trash or cleaned up afterwards. The rim of the wheel doubles as the progress arc, the hub ends on a tick, and a card names the new file with a Reveal in Finder button.

When one file in a batch fails, it says so for that file and carries on with the rest. A PDF with no text layer explains that it is probably a scan; a video that refuses to export says so rather than producing an empty file.

Two ways in, one with no permissions

Watching for the Shift key during a drag means watching keystrokes system-wide, which macOS guards behind Accessibility permission. That is a lot to ask for a converter, so it is optional: files dropped onto the menu bar icon open the same wheel with no permission at all, and the app says plainly which mode it is in.

Built in black and white

Like the other 1dot1 Mac apps, Switcheroo is greyscale in light and dark mode. The wheel is the one piece of glass: a frosted ring with a white hairline, a soft shadow and a highlight along the top edge, masked to the ring and the hub. Where the app it takes after lights the hovered segment in orange, Switcheroo fills it solid black.

It is a universal app for Apple silicon and Intel Macs, runs on macOS 13 Ventura or later, and never connects to the internet.

How to use it, feature by feature

Everything below is in the five-page guide inside the download as well, so it is at hand after the page is closed.

Opening the wheel

1. Press and hold on a file in Finder or on the Desktop for about half a second. The wheel opens around the file.
2. Or hold Shift while dragging files anywhere on screen, and drop onto a petal.
3. Or drag files onto the menu bar icon, which needs no permission at all.

Working the wheel

1. Click a petal to run it, or drag the file onto a petal and let go.
2. Click the middle to turn to the second page, or to cancel when there is only one page.
3. Tap Option to swap the petals for the tools, and tap again to go back. The ring stays put while the pointer travels.
4. Arrow keys or a scroll rotate the selection, Return runs it, Escape closes it.
5. Right-click, or tap with two fingers, to cancel at any point.

Converting a file

1. Images become PNG, JPEG, HEIC, TIFF, GIF or PDF. WebP and camera RAW can be read, but macOS cannot write WebP, so there is no WebP petal.
2. PDFs become images at 150 or 300 dpi, or plain text. A scan with no text layer says so instead of writing an empty file.
3. Video becomes MP4, MOV, an animated GIF, or M4A for the sound alone.
4. Audio becomes M4A, WAV, AIFF or CAF. There is no MP3, because macOS has no MP3 encoder.
5. Folders and files become ZIP, TAR or TAR.GZ, and archives unpack into a new folder.

Crop

1. Tap Option, click Crop, and the settings window opens with the picture and the crop drawn on it.
2. Pick a ratio: Original, 1:1, 16:9, 4:3, 3:2 or 5:4, or drag Width and Height for a free crop.
3. Watch the pixel size on the Reset row; it is exactly what will be written.
4. For a video, set the Time range underneath to keep only part of the clip at the same time.
5. Press Apply. The rim fills, then the file is named with a button to reveal it in Finder.

Resize

1. Click Resize and drag Longest edge; the other side follows the original proportions.
2. Asking for more than the original reads "no upscale", because enlarging invents detail that is not there.
3. Press Apply.

Rotate

1. Click Rotate, then 90 degrees left or right, 180, or flip horizontally or vertically.
2. The preview turns with the choice. Video keeps its audio.

Compress

1. Click Compress and drag Quality; lower means smaller.
2. Photographs take heavy compression well; screenshots of text do not.

Strip

1. Click Strip to remove EXIF and location from a photo before sending it anywhere.
2. It runs immediately, with no settings, and changes nothing else about the picture.

Trim

1. Click Trim and set the in and out handles on the Time range.
2. The preview shows the frame at the handle being dragged, so the cut is chosen by eye.
3. Apply keeps only what lies between the handles.

Split

1. For video or audio, set the split point: the result is part 1 and part 2, both with sound.
2. For a PDF, split into one file per page, or into two parts at a chosen page.

Snapshot

1. Click Snapshot, move the time slider to the frame wanted, and Apply writes that frame as a PNG.

Speed

1. Click Speed, then 0.25, 0.5, 1.5 or 2 times.
2. Audio stays in sync, but its pitch is not corrected, so voices shift as they would on tape.

Merge and Unpack

1. Select several images, open the wheel and choose Merge to combine them into one PDF, in the order they were selected.
2. Choose Unpack on a ZIP, TAR or TAR.GZ to extract it into a new folder beside the archive.

If nothing happens

1. Press and hold does nothing: Accessibility permission is missing, or an update invalidated it. Remove Switcheroo from System Settings, Privacy and Security, Accessibility with the minus button, add it again, and reopen the app.
2. Finder list view does not respond: macOS does not report the file under the pointer there, so Switcheroo asks Finder what is selected. Allow that when asked, or use icon view.
3. A petal is dimmed: that tool cannot apply to the file, for example Trim on a photograph.
4. A video refuses to convert: some recordings are protected and cannot be exported. That file says so, and the rest carry on.

Get Switcheroo

Switcheroo is available on 1dot1 as a single download, with the five-page guide, a README and the licence inside the zip.

Get It Now