About Shard Tools

Why browser-local

Most free file tools work the same way: you hand over your document, a server somewhere does the work, and you download the result. That model is convenient and it is also strange, because the files people convert are frequently the ones they would least like to hand to a stranger. Passport scans. Payslips. Tenancy agreements. Medical letters. The moment a file is uploaded, its safety depends on promises you cannot check.

Modern browsers can do this work themselves. Reading a PDF, re-encoding a photograph, rebuilding a document - all of it runs perfectly well on the machine already in front of you. So that is where we do it.

AI workflows: Local Private first, Edge Assisted when it fits

Shard Tools now exposes a small MCP endpoint so AI assistants can find the right tool or run deterministic no-file work directly. Unit conversions and calculators can run on Cloudflare edge compute from just the numbers and units involved, which keeps the model from spending frontier compute on arithmetic and formula recall.

Browser file tools keep files on your device. Edge Assisted MCP file actions are also available: an AI assistant sends the file bytes to Cloudflare for that request and receives the result. Those actions are labelled separately from Local Private browser tools because the file leaves your device during processing.

The promise is structural, not editorial

Any site can write "we respect your privacy". We tried to build it so the claim is checkable instead:

• Browser tool routes refuse POST, PUT, PATCH and DELETE with a 405. The separate /mcp endpoint accepts POST for disclosed AI assistant actions.
• The Content Security Policy restricts third-party connections. Browser tool code keeps selected files in the tab; the policy alone is not proof that an upload cannot happen.
• No analytics script, tag manager, or session recorder runs in your browser. There is no separate analytics beacon. Advertising partners may use cookies or similar identifiers where consent and applicable law allow.

Open the network tab in your browser's developer tools and use any tool on the site. A Local Private browser tool does not send its input file in a request. Cloudflare receives file bytes only if an Edge Assisted MCP file action is chosen. Advertising partners do not receive files processed inside a browser tool.

What this design cannot do

Being honest about the limits is part of the point. Some things genuinely need a server, and rather than pretend otherwise we simply do not offer them. Optical character recognition on scanned documents needs models too large and too slow to ship to a browser at usable quality, so a scan with no text layer is reported as exactly that rather than guessed at. Table extraction from PDFs has no credible browser implementation, so it is absent instead of approximate. Where a browser approach is weaker than a server one, the page says so.

You will also find limits stated on individual tools: page counts, file sizes, and the real consequences of an operation. Compressing a document can make its text unselectable. Rebuilding a document from copied pages leaves fillable form fields inert. We would rather tell you before you rely on the output.

How it is built

The site is served from Cloudflare's edge. Browser tools use standard browser APIs; the MCP endpoint uses a Cloudflare Worker for deterministic actions. There is no account file library or database for storing processed files. Every tool page is tested, and the site refuses to publish a page whose tool does not actually work.

About Roshan and contact

Shard Tools is built and maintained by Roshan, a developer who wanted a safer way to resize photos, compress PDFs, and handle private documents without uploading them to a converter service. The tools have been developed and checked one at a time, with the browser's network panel used as a practical way to verify the local-processing claim. If you have found a bug, hit a file that behaves oddly, or want a tool that does not exist yet, that feedback is genuinely useful.

You can reach us at support@shard.tools. Our data practices are described in full in the privacy policy, and the terms covering use of the tools are on the terms page.