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 is 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.
An 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, like “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.
