<p>Single-degree-of-freedom (DOF) gripper is widely used in various robotic applications. As operational performance requirements and working environments evolve, single-DOF grippers are increasingly expected to position their drive motors closer to the robot base to reduce inertia, while simultaneously achieving a large gripping range and a compact folded size. This paper proposed a single-DOF linkage-driven gripper utilizing a linkage mechanism derived from the Sarrus mechanism as its driving input, which enhances its potential for application in certain parallel manipulators, thereby mitigating the impact of the gripper’s drive motor inertia on the robot’s response speed. Inspired by the grasping motion of the human hands, a multi-bar crank-slider finger structure was designed to achieve a large deployed size while maintaining a compact folded size. In order to imbue the designed manipulator with dexterity akin to that of a human hand, video footage was employed to capture the motion trajectories of human hands, which were then utilized as the anticipated motion trajectories for the manipulator’s fingertips during the design phase. Furthermore, to achieve a compact form structure for the finger, a multi-objective optimization algorithm was employed to refine the finger structure of the manipulator. A prototype model was developed and subjected to gripping experiments, demonstrating its ability to perform effective gripping under the actuation of the linkages, while maintaining a compact folded size.</p>