brew / rank 5586

Install swftools with Homebrew, MacPorts, Nix

SWF manipulation and generation tools. Version 0.9.2 via Homebrew; verified from local package data. Also installable with nix: nix profile install nixpkgs#swftools.

Install command Security notes

install

Additional install commands

macOS

Homebrewverified · 100%

brew install swftools

local Homebrew formula metadata

MacPortsverified · 94%

sudo port install swftools

MacPorts ports tree · graphics/swftools/Portfile · source: api.github.com

Linux

Nixverified · 92%

nix profile install nixpkgs#swftools

nixpkgs package indexes · pkgs/by-name/sw/swftools/package.nix · source: api.github.com

overview

Package summary

SWF manipulation and generation tools

Project links

Homepage

Commands and aliases

as3compile
font2swf
png2swf
swfbbox
swfc
swfcombine
swfdump
swfextract
swfrender
swfstrings
wav2swf

history

Project history and usage

SWFTools is a collection of command-line utilities for reading, combining, extracting, and generating Adobe Flash SWF files. Its package-manager relevance comes from the Unix-toolbox shape of the project: many small executables such as swfdump, swfextract, png2swf, wav2swf, font2swf, swfc, and as3compile rather than one monolithic application.

Project history

The official ChangeLog records the project from an initial 0.0.1 release through the 0.9 series. Across those releases the suite expanded from PDF and SWF manipulation into text extraction, image and audio conversion, Flash compression support, SWF bounding-box work, a scripting compiler, Python bindings, and ActionScript 3 tooling.

Adoption history

The official README reports portability across Solaris, Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, HP-UX, macOS, and older Windows releases. In package-manager culture, SWFTools survived the decline of browser Flash because archival, conversion, and inspection tasks still needed reproducible command-line tools.

How it is used

Typical usage is file-oriented: inspect SWF metadata with swfdump, extract embedded assets with swfextract, combine or wrap movies with swfcombine, or generate SWF content from images, fonts, WAV audio, PDFs, or simple source scripts. This makes the suite closer to ImageMagick-style media plumbing than to an authoring environment.

Why package nerds care

SWFTools matters to package nerds as a preservation-era media package: it packages a historically important but now legacy format, bundles many utilities with optional library dependencies, and keeps old Flash workflows scriptable on modern Unix-like systems.

Timeline

0.0.1: Initial release recorded in the official ChangeLog.
0.3.0: png2swf and wav2swf added, alongside Flash 6 compressed SWF support.
0.5.0: swfc and swfbbox added.
0.9.0: as3compile added and SWF/Flash 8 and 9 support expanded.
0.9.2: Poppler integration work started for pdf2swf.

Related projects

Adobe Flash SWF is the file format SWFTools manipulates.
xpdf and later Poppler appear in the official ChangeLog as PDF parser lineage for pdf2swf.
LAME, zlib, freetype, and other media libraries appear in the build and feature history.

Sources

security posture

Risk level: green

narrow executable package without higher-risk signals.

Risk classifier

green risk · low confidence · appliance

Why

narrow executable package without higher-risk signals

Signals

metadata:no-higher-risk-signals

Install behavior

No Homebrew bottle metadata was recorded.

Recommended review

Before unattended agent use, check whether the tool reads plaintext credentials, writes remote state, publishes artifacts, or shells out to plugins.

executables

Installed executables

Command	Kind	Exposure	Note
`as3compile`	executable	indexed executable	Discovered from the local executable index.
`font2swf`	executable	indexed executable	Discovered from the local executable index.
`png2swf`	executable	indexed executable	Discovered from the local executable index.
`swfbbox`	executable	indexed executable	Discovered from the local executable index.
`swfc`	executable	indexed executable	Discovered from the local executable index.
`swfcombine`	executable	indexed executable	Discovered from the local executable index.
`swfdump`	executable	indexed executable	Discovered from the local executable index.
`swfextract`	executable	indexed executable	Discovered from the local executable index.
`swfrender`	executable	indexed executable	Discovered from the local executable index.
`swfstrings`	executable	indexed executable	Discovered from the local executable index.
`wav2swf`	executable	indexed executable	Discovered from the local executable index.

freshness

Version and freshness

These signals separate page generation age, package-manager activity, and upstream release comparison. Version lag is warned only when an evidence URL and comparable versions are present.

page generated2026-08-03

manager version0.9.2

manager updated

local dataunknown

upstreamnot available

latest detectednot detected

okNo freshness warnings were generated.

install metadata

Package metadata

Package key	brew:swftools
Version	0.9.2
Package manager	Homebrew
Homepage	https://github.com/swftools/swftools
Bottle	not recorded
Service	none declared

source database matches

Other package-manager records

Matches are pulled from external package-manager indexes and kept separate from local Automic Vault package links.

Nix95%

swftools

nix profile install nixpkgs#swftools

normalized package name match
Matched by: Swftools

nixpkgs package indexes · api.github.com · nixpkgs package indexes: pkgs/by-name/sw/swftools/package.nix from https://api.github.com/repos/NixOS/nixpkgs/git/trees/master?recursive=1

MacPorts95%