CITRUS 🍋
A free file converter that lives in your Mac's menu bar.

Drag a file, hold Shift, and a wheel of formats appears under the pointer.
Drop the file on a format and the converted copy appears next to the original.
Citrus converts images, documents, spreadsheets, audio, video, archives
and subtitles.


WHAT'S IN THIS FOLDER

  Citrus.app               the app
  Install Citrus.command   sets everything up (run this)
  Read Me.txt              this file


BEFORE YOU START

  • An Apple Silicon Mac (M1 or later) running macOS 14 Sonoma or newer.
  • An internet connection and a few GB of free space for the tools.
  • Your Mac password. Allow 10–20 minutes the first time.


INSTALL

  1. Double-click "Install Citrus.command".

     If macOS says it can't be opened ("unidentified developer" or
     "Apple could not verify…"): click Done, open System Settings →
     Privacy & Security, scroll down and click "Open Anyway", then
     double-click the installer again.

     Or open Terminal, type  bash  followed by a space, drag
     "Install Citrus.command" into the Terminal window, and press Return.

  2. Follow the prompts in the Terminal window. The installer:
       • installs Homebrew if needed (the standard free installer for Mac tools)
       • installs ffmpeg, WebP tools, ExifTool, pngquant, Java and LibreOffice
         (anything already installed is skipped)
       • copies Citrus into Applications and opens it

  3. Look for the lemon in the menu bar, on a small green square.


USING CITRUS

  • Start dragging a file, then hold a key (before or during the drag):
        Shift     Convert wheel (JPG, PDF, MP3, DOCX …)
        Command   Tools:
                    images  Medium (1280 px), Small (640 px), favicon set,
                            compress, rotate, remove background,
                            copy text (reads text in the picture), strip metadata
                    PDFs    split (or merge several), compress, rotate,
                            strip metadata, copy text
                    archives extract
        Control   Actions (view metadata)
    Drop the file on a segment. Release elsewhere or press Esc to cancel.

  • Or choose "Convert Files…" from the lemon menu.

  • Converted files are saved next to the original and never overwrite
    anything; an existing name gets " 2", " 3" and so on. Multi-page
    documents saved as JPG or PNG go into a folder of page images.

  • Lemon menu → Settings… lets you change the keys, turn on Launch at
    Login, set image quality, and see every supported format (Compatibility).
    Untick "Colour icon in the menu bar" for a black-and-white lemon like
    the menu bar's other icons.


GOOD TO KNOW

  • Saving as PAGES uses Apple's free Pages app (from the App Store). The
    first time, macOS asks whether Citrus may control Pages: click OK.
    No other permissions are needed.

  • To update: unzip a newer copy and run its installer. It replaces the
    old Citrus and skips tools that are already installed.

  • To uninstall: choose Quit Citrus from the lemon menu, then drag
    Citrus from Applications to the Trash. The tools stay installed; to
    remove them too, run this in Terminal:
        brew uninstall ffmpeg webp exiftool pngquant openjdk && brew uninstall --cask libreoffice