Most free "online tools" work the same way: you upload your PDF or photo to someone's server, wait, then download the result. Often there's a watermark, a daily limit, or a signup wall after two tries.
I wanted the opposite, so I built toolsdocks: 167 free tools for PDFs, images, video, audio, text, spreadsheets and everyday calculations. Most of them run entirely in your browser.
Why process files in the browser?
- Privacy: a contract, an ID scan or a family photo never leaves your device.
- Speed: no upload and no download for large files. A 200 MB video does not have to travel anywhere.
- No limits: your own computer does the work, so there is no reason to cap usage or force an account.
How it works
The site is built with Next.js, and every tool page is static. The heavy work happens in the browser:
- Video and audio: WebAssembly builds of media libraries convert MP4 to MP3, compress video and burn subtitles.
- PDFs: merging, splitting, signing and filling forms happen in JavaScript on your machine.
- AI tools: speech-to-text, summarizing and background removal download a model once and then run locally.
Each tool page states clearly whether anything leaves your device. A few tools, like DNS lookup or a broken-link checker, need the network by nature, and they say so.
Three hard problems
- Big files on phones. Mobile browsers have tight memory limits, so tools process files in chunks and warn before a file gets too large.
- First load size. Media libraries are big, so each tool loads only its own code, and only when you open it.
- Honest labels. "No upload" has to be true for every tool that claims it, so it is set per tool, never site-wide.
Some of the tools
It's free and supported by ads, which stay off on pages where you work with your own files.
I'd love feedback: which tool would you use, and what's missing?
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