How to Batch Resize Images on a Mac

After switching to WordPress/BlueHost and getting the Canon Rebel T3i, I noticed I needed to put a little more effort into the images I was uploading to my blog. The photos I was uploading straight from my camera were huge and even after changing the default size settings on my camera, it was slowing down my blog and server. I don’t edit my photos very much, so I really just use iPhoto for most posts. As far as I know, resizing is not easy or convenient in iPhoto so I’ve just never done it. Until I found a super life/blog hack.

Step One: Gather and Edit Your Photos
Choose the images you want to use and upload them to your computer using whatever software you choose. (Another little tip if you also use iPhoto, “flag” all of your possible options for your post, then go into the Flagged section and edit them down to the best of the best there.) Save all of your images as normal.

Step Two: Drag and Drop to Desktop
After you’ve edited and saved all of your photos as you normally would, create a new folder on your desktop and name it whatever you want – usually the post name or subject works best. For this post, I’ll name it “Chewy”.

Select all of the images in iPhoto, then drag and drop them to the designated desktop folder.

Step Three: Open All Images in Finder
Open the desktop folder and select all of the images. Double click one of them to open the Preview window.

They should all open in a Preview window like so:

Step Four: Resize Images in Preview
Select all of the images in the menu on the left. Open the Tools menu at the top of the screen, then click Adjust Size.

When the sizing window opens, you can choose a specific width to resize all of the images to – no matter if they were taken in landscape (horizontally) or portrait (vertically) mode. The width of my blog is something like 800 or 900 px, so I resize all of my images to 1000px because my theme allows the images to resize down automatically to the post width. You can choose any width you’d like, but it’s best to keep the width about the same as your text width. Leave all other fields alone and click OK.

Step Five: Save and You’re Done!
Select File and Save – and you’re done! It’s really that easy. Now you can upload your images to your blog post without slowing down your site or taking up space on your server.