About this site

The problem this solves

Almost every free file converter on the internet works the same way: you upload your file to a company's server, their computer does the conversion, and you download the result. It works, but it means a stranger's machine briefly holds your file.

Most of the time nobody thinks about that. But the files people convert are often the sensitive ones — a passport scan for a visa application, a medical form, an insurance photo of a damaged house, a signed contract, family photographs. Handing those to an unknown server in exchange for a format change is a poor trade, and until recently there was not much alternative.

How Private File Tools is different

Modern browsers are capable of doing this work themselves. Every tool here uses WebAssembly and JavaScript running on your own machine, which means:

• Your files are never uploaded, because there is no server to upload them to.
• Nothing is stored, logged or retained — there is nothing to retain.
• There is no account to create and no email address to hand over.
• The tools keep working with your wifi switched off.
• Large batches are not throttled or paywalled, because processing costs us nothing.

That last point is worth spelling out. Upload-based converters have to pay for every file their servers process, which is why they impose limits, watermarks, queues and subscriptions. This site does not have that cost, so it does not need those restrictions.

A promise you can check

Privacy claims are easy to make and hard to verify, so this one is designed to be tested rather than trusted. Open your browser's developer tools, switch to the Network tab, and convert a file — you will see no file data leaving your machine. Better still, disconnect from the internet completely and use the tools anyway. They work, because everything needed is already running on your device.

No upload-based competitor can offer that test, because their product fundamentally depends on the upload.

What's here

The site currently offers image converters for HEIC, PNG, WebP and JPG, along with tools to merge and split PDF documents. Metadata handling is deliberate: photo conversions strip GPS coordinates and camera details by default, and generated PDFs are not stamped with identifying producer information.

More tools are added over time, with the same rule applied to each one — if it cannot be done without uploading your file, it does not get built.

Who runs it

This is an independently built and maintained project, not a venture-funded company. It is free to use, carries no sign-up, and is supported by keeping running costs close to zero.

If something is broken, confusing, or you want a tool that isn't here yet, the contact page is the way to say so. Feedback from people using it for real work is what decides what gets built next.