foldly.eu is live

Back in April I wrote here about why I’m building yet another PDF tool. Today foldly.eu is done — everything from the original plan is live, from the client-side basics through Office conversion with OCR.

Locally in the browser

These tools run entirely in your browser. The file never leaves your device:

• Merge multiple PDFs, drag & drop the order
• Split by page numbers, ranges, or “every N pages”
• Extract, delete, reorder or rotate pages
• Compress at multiple quality levels
• Watermarks, page numbers, crop
• Edit metadata
• Password protect or remove a known password (no cracking)
• Place a signature image
• PDF ↔ images, images → PDF
• PDF → text

With a short server detour

These operations can’t be solved cleanly on the client side — so they run server-side, with one clear rule: uploads are deleted automatically after 15 minutes, visible as a notice in the UI.

• PDF ↔ Word, Excel, PowerPoint
• PDF ↔ OpenDocument (ODT, ODS, ODP)
• OCR — turn scanned PDFs into searchable PDFs
• PDF/A — archival format for long-term storage

Privacy — the actual point

• No ads, no trackers, no cookie banner. The only cookies are technically required (session, language).
• Client-side processing wherever possible. Server processing only where there’s no other way.
• 15-minute auto-cleanup for all server-side uploads.
• GDPR-friendly, hosted in Germany, anonymised pageview stats with a 7-day retention.

Account — only if you want one

All tools work fully anonymously. No login, no email, no friction.

If you do register, you get on top:

• A history of recent operations (metadata only — “Merge, 3 files, 2 hours ago” — never the files themselves)
• Preferences (e.g. preferred compression level)
• Email change with confirmation flow, password reset, account deletion — the usual

Double opt-in, bcrypt, session-based. If you don’t want an account, just click the tool and go.

Around the edges

• Bilingual German / English with a proper language switcher
• Mobile-optimised with off-canvas navigation
• Searchable help with FAQ and one example per tool
• Full imprint, privacy notice, terms of use — privately run, privately positioned

Tech stack, if you’re curious

Next.js 16 (App Router), React 19, TypeScript, Tailwind 4. Client-side pdf-lib and pdfjs-dist. Server-side on a small VPS with Caddy, Node, LibreOffice for Office conversion and Tesseract for OCR.

Give it a try

foldly.eu — no sign-up required.

Feedback, bugs or wishes welcome at support@foldly.eu or via the contact form here. Especially appreciated: anything that hangs or a file that won’t go through.