How to Resize and Compress your Images Automatically.

Why Scaling Images First Matters for Workflow and SEO

When you're adding visuals to a blog post, resizing images before uploading isn't just a time-saver — it's a powerful SEO tactic. By scaling images to the correct dimensions from the shat every post performs better out of the gate.

HOW-TO VIDEO

🛠️ Step-by-Step Using MacBook's Automator (Folder Action)

✅ Goal:

• Create a Folder: ~/Social Images

• Action 1: Resize image to 640 px wide for small (1024 px for banners)

• Action 2: Compress it using ImageOptim

• Trigger: Runs automatically when a file is added

🔧 1. Create the New Folder Called "Social Images" or anything you would like

• Go to Finder or your sidebar and create a folder called Social Images:
  /Users/YourName/Social Images

🧰 2. Open Automator

• Go to Spotlight (⌘ + Space) → type “Automator” and open it

• Select: New Document → Folder Action

📂 3. Set the Folder for Automator to Watch

When you open Automator and choose "New Document" → "Folder Action", Automator creates a new workflow attached to a folder. You need to tell it which folder to watch.

Here's what to do:

At the very top of the Automator window, you’ll see this dropdown:

Folder Action receives files and folders added to: [Choose Folder]

• “Folder Action receives files and folders added to” → Select Social Images

➕ 4. Add “Scale Images” Action

• In the left panel, type "Scale Images"

• Drag it into the workflow area

• When prompted to add a copy step, click “Don’t Add” (you want to overwrite the original)

• Enter 640 px for small (1024 px for banners)

➕ 5. Add “Run Shell Script” Action

• In the search bar, type “Run Shell Script”

• Drag it below the Scale Images action

Paste this into the script:

for f in "$@"

do

/Applications/ImageOptim.app/Contents/MacOS/ImageOptim "$f"

done

This calls ImageOptim to compress each image after resizing.

💾 6. Save the Folder Action

• File → Save

• Name it something like ResizeAndCompressSocial

Done! 🎉

✅ Now What Happens:

• You drop an image into the Social Image Folder ~/Social Images

• It automatically:

  • Resizes to 640 px wide

  • Compresses it via ImageOptim

• No manual steps needed

💡 Tip:

If you're using lossy compression in ImageOptim, open its Preferences and enable:

• JPEG/PNG lossy

• Strip metadata

• Set default quality