Who we are
We built this because upload buttons made us nervous.
Gotool.xyz started as one developer's annoyance with "free" file tools that weren't actually free — they just charged in a different currency: your files, sitting on somebody else's server.
How this started
It started with a PDF. Two of them, actually — a resume and a cover letter that needed to become one file, about ten minutes before a job application closed. Every "free" merge tool wanted something first: an email address, an account, a credit card "just to verify you're human," or — more often — just a plain upload button with no real explanation of where that file was actually going, or who might be looking at it after.
That's a strange thing to hand over casually. A resume has a name on it, an address, a work history, sometimes a phone number — a small but real pile of somebody's life, uploaded to a server nobody can see inside of, in exchange for a task a browser could already do on its own.
So the merge happened locally instead — a quick script, run in a browser console, that never sent the files anywhere. It worked. And the thought that followed was obvious in hindsight: if merging two PDFs doesn't need a server, how much of what we're routinely asked to upload doesn't either?
Turns out: most of it. Merging, splitting, converting, compressing, trimming a video, pulling the audio out of a clip — none of it is actually server work. It's just work someone decided to route through a server anyway, usually because that's where the ads and the email-capture form live. Gotool.xyz is what's left when you take those two things back out.
What we actually believe
Three rules, and we've tried hard not to break any of them.
Nothing leaves your device
Every tool here runs as JavaScript, in your browser tab. Your file loads into memory, gets processed, and comes back out — it never touches a server, because there isn't one in the loop to touch. Close the tab and it's like it never happened.
No account required
Every tool works the moment you land on it — no signup wall, no "create an account to continue," no forced newsletter. An account exists here, but it's entirely optional; all it does is remember your bookmarked tools.
Boring, on purpose
No growth-hacking pop-ups, no dark patterns nudging you toward a plan you don't need, no redesign every quarter to justify a roadmap. Just tools that do the job correctly and get out of your way.
The honest numbers
Tools, live right now
Not a marketing figure — this counts however many are actually working on the site the moment you're reading this.
Files ever stored
Not "zero after 30 days," not "zero unless you opt in" — zero, structurally, because there's no upload endpoint for a file to land on.
Thing we track per tool run
Just the tool's name — "merge," "trim-video," whatever ran — so we know what's actually useful. Never the file, its name, its size, or anything inside it.
Where this is headed
Everything on this site is heading to desktop and mobile — the same tools, running the same way, with the same rule about never uploading your files. That's a genuinely harder problem on a phone than in a browser tab, which is exactly why it's not done yet instead of just being announced and left to rot. We'd rather ship it late and working than ship it on time and broken.
Beyond that: more tools, for as long as there are file tasks people are still being asked to hand over to a stranger's server for no real reason.
Who's behind it
A small team who'd rather spend a week fixing an edge case in a PDF parser than a week writing a blog post about fixing an edge case in a PDF parser. No office, no press kit, no "our story" video — just tools we wanted to exist, built the way we'd want to use them ourselves.
If something's broken, or missing, or could just be better — that feedback actually reaches the people who can fix it. There's no layer of anything in between. Tell us directly.
Frequently asked questions
Is Gotool.xyz really free?
Yes — every tool, no subscription, no premium tier, no watermarks. An optional free account exists, but all it adds is the ability to bookmark tools you use often.
Do I need to create an account?
No. Every tool works the moment you land on it. The only thing an account does here is remember your bookmarks and turn off the ad slots — nothing is gated behind signing up.
Do you see or store my files?
No. Every tool runs as JavaScript in your own browser tab. Your file loads into your browser's memory, gets processed there, and comes back out — it's never uploaded to a server, because there isn't one in the loop to upload it to.
What happens to my file after I close the tab?
Nothing has to happen to it, because it only ever existed in your browser's own memory for that session — closing the tab clears it the same way closing any other unsaved browser tab does.
Why does a tool say "Beta"?
It means that tool depends on a heavier browser technology (usually a video engine, loaded on first use) that couldn't be fully verified working in every browser and environment before release. It should work — it just hasn't been proven everywhere yet.
Can I use Gotool.xyz on my phone?
Yes, the site is built to work on mobile browsers. Tools that process large files — video especially — will generally run slower on a phone than on a computer, simply because there's less processing power and memory available.
Is there a file size limit?
Not one that Gotool.xyz enforces. Since everything runs in your own browser, the real limit is how much memory your device has available, not a rule we set. Very large files may run slowly, or fail, on lower-powered devices.
What file types are supported?
It depends on the tool — check each tool's own page for exactly what it accepts, since that varies by category (PDF tools work with .pdf, image tools with .jpg/.png, and so on).
Do you use cookies?
A few, and only for essential things: keeping you signed in if you have an account, and anonymously remembering which tools you've already "loved" so the count doesn't double up on a repeat visit. No third-party advertising or tracking cookies are used to identify you.
How do I report a bug or suggest a new tool?
Use the Contact Us page, linked at the bottom of every page. Feedback and suggestions go to the people who can actually act on them.
Privacy, in actual detail
Not just "we respect your privacy" — the concrete version, of what's collected, what isn't, and where any of it goes.
Your files, and anything inside them, are never collected. Every tool processes files entirely within your browser's own memory. There is no upload step in any tool on this site — not a slow one, not a background one, not one that only fires under certain conditions. The code simply never sends file contents anywhere.
What is collected, specifically:
- Which page was viewed and an approximate country (from IP address, looked up and then discarded — the IP address itself is not stored), so we know which pages get used.
- Which tool was run — just its name, like "merge" or "trim-video" — never the file, its name, its size, or anything about its contents.
- If you create an account: your email address, a bcrypt hash of your password (never the password itself), and your bookmarked tools.
- If you use the Contact Us form: your name, email, and message, so a reply is possible.
Cookies used, specifically: a session cookie if you're logged in (so you stay logged in as you browse), and one anonymous cookie that remembers which tools you've "loved" on this browser, so the count doesn't increase on every repeat visit. Neither is used for advertising or cross-site tracking.
Worth being upfront about: a handful of fonts and code libraries this site depends on (Google Fonts, and a few JavaScript libraries used for PDF/image/video processing) are loaded from their own providers' servers, not this site's. Loading anything from another server necessarily reveals your IP address to that server, the same way it would for any website that uses a CDN or web font — that's a function of how the web works, not something specific to what's built here, but it's still true and worth stating plainly rather than leaving out.
Ad slots (when configured) come from third-party ad networks, which may set their own cookies under their own privacy policies — those are the ad network's practices, not ours, and they stop showing entirely once you're logged in.
This is a description of how the site actually works, written by the people who built it — not a substitute for legal advice, and not a claim of compliance with any specific law or regulation.