How it works

Where your files
go.

Short version: 48 of our 53 tools never upload anything. The other 5 send your file to our server for one conversion and delete it straight after.

Fig. A · browser toolsYour file never leaves your device
Fig. B · server toolsOne trip to our server, then deleted
Run in your browser
48
Use our server
5
Accounts needed
0
Longest a file can stay
30 min

Tools that run in your browser

Most tools do all their work inside the browser tab, using the processing power of your own device. The web page downloads the code it needs, your file is read from your disk into memory, processed, and the result is handed back to you as a download. The file itself is never sent anywhere.

This is possible because modern browsers are capable enough to do real document and image work:

  • PDF tools such as Merge, Split, Rotate, Sign and Edit use pdf-lib, an open-source library that reads and writes PDF files, and pdf.js, the PDF renderer built into Firefox. Our copy of the pdf.js worker is served from our own domain.
  • Image tools such as Resize, Compress and Crop use the browser's built-in Canvas API.
  • HEIC to JPG decodes iPhone photos with libheif, an open-source decoder compiled to WebAssembly and served from our own domain.
  • Remove Background runs an AI model with WebAssembly on your device. The model files are downloaded once from IMG.LY's servers and cached; your photo is not sent to them.
  • Text, developer and converter tools are plain JavaScript running on the text you paste.
Some tools download fonts or model files from other servers (listed in our privacy policy). Those requests fetch code and assets. They never include your files or text.

Tools that use our server

A few conversions need desktop-grade software that cannot run in a browser. These 5 tools send your file to our server:

Here is exactly what happens when you use one of them:

  • Your file is uploaded over an encrypted HTTPS connection, into a temporary folder used only for that job.
  • It is converted with open-source software: Ghostscript for compression, LibreOffice for Word and PowerPoint conversions, and pdfplumber for extracting tables to Excel.
  • The result is sent back to you, and the temporary folder, with both your file and the result, is deleted.
  • As a safety net, a cleanup job runs every five minutes and removes anything older than 30 minutes, in case a conversion is interrupted.
  • Files are never logged, inspected, backed up or shared, and there is no account for them to be attached to.

Compress PDF has an extra fallback: if our server is unavailable, it compresses in your browser instead, so you still get a result without uploading.

Check it yourself

You do not have to take our word for it. In Chrome, Edge or Firefox:

  • Open a browser tool, for example Merge PDF, and press F12 to open the developer tools.
  • Select the Network tab, then use the tool as normal.
  • You will see the page load its code, but no request carrying your file. For the server tools, you will see one request to /api/ with your file, and the converted file coming back.

What we do not do

  • No accounts, sign-ups or email collection.
  • No cookies, and no advertising or tracking scripts. Visits are counted with cookieless Cloudflare Web Analytics.
  • No watermarks added to your files, and no hidden limits that appear after a few uses.
  • A strict Content Security Policy tells your browser which outside sources the site may load code from, so a compromised third party cannot quietly add a script to the page.

The full details, including what our server logs contain and how long they are kept, are in the privacy policy. Questions? Get in touch.