Best Utilities Under 3MB - PNG Optimizer

Some of the most useful utilities are often the smallest. Non-Open Source users may be used to a program that installs hundreds of MBs or multiple GBs at a time, but many of the best portable apps and useful programs are small enough to run off a floppy (Remember those days?). In this series we consider programs under 5MB, a size good enough for even a 64MB or 128MB flash drive.

In the previous post we considered Audio Book Cutter, coming in at 2.59 MB. Today we consider PNG Optimizer which installed is only 523 KB! You can get it here.

PNG Optimizer is kind of a niche program, designed to convert more bloated image formats into the web optimized PNG format. It supports BMP, TGA, GIF, or older PNG files, as well as screen shots pasted from CTRL-Print Screen. To convert files simply drag them over the small window screen, and PNG optimizer will create new PNG files with the same name in the same directory without deleting the original file. The speed is fast, taking only a couple of seconds per image, and the program displays the status and progress of each file.

When pasting a screen shot using the CTRL-Print Screen operation, simply click on the Optimizer window and paste. The program will create a PNG file with automatic naming conventions in the PngOptimizer\Data folder.

The program is best for batch conversions especially when a lot of raw files are created, such as in animation projects. Most of the functionality in the program can be found in other graphics editors but for single operation conversions, this tool is a nice little add on. There are several other programs that may have slightly better optimization algorithms, but for portable use this is the best out there.