sharp is what I usually use to optimize images in my Node.js scripts.

But sometimes I like using the ImageOptim macOS application to optimize images with a GUI.

This time I had the need to start it from a Node.js script.

Here’s what I did.

First I imported the child_process built-in Node module:

import * as child from 'node:child_process'

then I called it in this way to optimize all images in a specific folder:

const images_folder = './img'

child.exec(`open -a ImageOptim ${images_folder}`)

This starts the app, you see its UI, but it’s not a big deal.

And I should note that this only works if you have the app installed.