If you are like me, you have to deal with plenty of image files that are not necessarily in the correct format for your use case. I usually use the proprietary XnConvert app to get the job done, but, for me, the need for an open-source image converter app remains.
Luckily, I have found a great open-source image converter app for Linux that gets the job done. It's called “Switcheroo”, and you might find it familiar. Let's dive in!
Switcheroo: Overview ⭐
Formerly known as Converter, Switcheroo is a neat image conversion app that has been written almost completely in the Rust programming language, and is part of the GNOME circle.
It supports a wide range of image formats that include, JPEG, PNG, WebP, AVIF, BMP, HEIF, JXL, TIFF, and more.
Other than that, here are its key highlights:
Open-Source
Fast Conversions
Minimal User Interface
Initial Impressions 👨💻
The installation went smoothly thanks to the official Flatpak package, and I added a PNG file for conversion by clicking on the “Open Images…” button. I tried dragging and dropping images into Switcheroo, but the app just crashed; more on that later.
Switcheroo allowed me to convert images into formats like JPG, HEIF, AVIF, WebP, etc. with options to tweak the quality of the output, setting the background color for converting transparent images, ability to resize them, and set a resize algorithm.
I could also convert multiple images at a time by adding them using the “Plus” button on the top-left of the app.
The preferences' menu had many options, such as pasting from the clipboard, opening a new window, clearing the existing window, enabling more file formats, etc.
Overall, I will say that Switcheroo does what it's advertised to do. However, on my GNOME 42.9-equipped system, I encountered random bugs while opening files and dragging/dropping images into the app.
Interestingly, it worked just fine when I tested it on a GNOME 46-equipped system, so I would suggest you run Switcheroo on newer GNOME releases to avoid the above-mentioned issues.
📥 Get Switcheroo
You can find Switcheroo on the Flathub store, or if you are up for an adventure, then you can visit its GitLab repo.
💬 Did you like what Switcheroo has to offer? Let me know below!
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