About ImgShifter
100% in your browser — verifiable offline.
ImgShifter exists so you never have to hand a private image to a stranger's server just to change its format. The browser already has everything it needs to do the work. This site is the version of that idea that we wished had existed the day we needed it most.
The hospital moment
A while ago I was in a hospital bed, trying to send my employer the medical certificate they needed before they would approve my sick leave. I took a photo of the paper certificate with my iPhone, opened the HR portal on the same phone, tapped upload — and the portal threw back a red error. It only accepted PNG, JPG, or PDF. My iPhone had quietly saved the photo as .heic, and from a hospital bed I had no laptop, no easy converter, no obvious way out.
The only fast option I could find uploaded my photo — a private medical document — to a server I'd never heard of, run by a company I knew nothing about, under a privacy policy I had no time to read. I clicked the button anyway, because I was sick and I needed the leave approved. That discomfort is the entire reason ImgShifter exists.
The kicker, which I only learned later: a photo of a paper document still carries hidden EXIF metadata. The location of the hospital. The exact second I took the shot. The device, the orientation, sometimes even the GPS down to a few metres. None of that is visible on screen, all of it travels with the file the moment you upload it. (That story has its own tool now — Remove EXIF Data strips that metadata losslessly, also entirely in your browser.)
Why this is possible now
None of this would have been viable ten years ago. The browser couldn't decode HEIC, couldn't encode AVIF, couldn't work offline, and didn't have the compute headroom to chew through a 50 MB image without freezing the tab. All four of those changed in the last few years.
Phones and laptops are already powerful enough
The same device that runs language models, video editors, and games can decode a HEIC and re-encode it as a JPEG in milliseconds. Sending a simple image to a server for that is absurd in 2026.
The browser caught up
The Canvas API handles PNG, JPG, WEBP, crop, and resize. WebAssembly modules decode HEIC (heic-to) and encode AVIF (@jsquash/avif) right inside the tab. The browser is now a complete image-processing runtime.
Offline by default
A Service Worker caches every tool, so once you've loaded the page once, the converters keep working with the network off - on a plane, in a tunnel, in a hospital basement.
The conclusion writes itself: the device can do the work, so the device should do the work. The detailed tech stack is on the How it works page if you want to dig in.
Verifiable privacy — the differentiator
Most "privacy-first" image converters still upload your file. They process it on their server, then ask you to trust a promise that they delete the original afterwards. There is no way for you to check whether that promise is real.
ImgShifter is different in a way you can actually test. Turn off your network, run a conversion, and watch zero outbound requests in your browser's DevTools Network tab. The file is decoded and re-encoded on your device, by your browser, using code that was downloaded the first time you visited. That is the principle: privacy you can check beats privacy you're asked to believe.
Don't trust us — verify it
Other “privacy-first” image tools still upload your file to a server. ImgShifter's browser tools don't. Here's a 30-second test you can run yourself, with nothing to install.
You are online
Turn off your network and watch this badge change — the tools keep working.
- 1
Turn off your network
Disable wifi or enable Airplane Mode. (You can also throttle to Offline in DevTools - Network tab.)
- 2
Stay on this page
No need to refresh. Open any browser-side tool - PNG to JPG, Compress, Crop, Resize.
- 3
Convert an image
Drop a file. The conversion finishes with zero outbound network requests. The result downloads from your own browser.
Prefer the technical view? Open DevTools → Network tab, run a conversion, and watch the request count stay at zero.
Radical honesty about the exceptions
A small set of conversions need native libraries that browsers genuinely don't ship: TIFF and camera RAW formats (CR2, NEF, ARW, DNG). For these, ImgShifter routes the file over an encrypted HTTPS connection to a conversion service, returns the result, and does not retain the original beyond the conversion request.
Every server-side tool is labelled clearly on its page and in the navigation menu, with a network icon and a note. We could have hidden that and claimed "nothing ever leaves your device" across the whole site — plenty of competitors do. We think admitting the exception is what makes the rest of the claims trustworthy. The full per-tool breakdown is on the Privacy page.
What ImgShifter is today
A full no-upload toolkit, not just a single converter. Everything is free, no signup required.
- Convert between PNG, JPG, WEBP, AVIF, and HEIC
- Compress JPG, PNG, and WEBP with target-size presets
- Crop, resize, and change aspect ratio (single or batch with ZIP export)
- Splitters for Instagram and Threads layouts
- EXIF viewer and lossless metadata remover
- Free, no signup, no account, files up to 50 MB
The full list lives on the tools page. New ones get added whenever we hit a workflow that should not require an upload.
Your files are yours.
And you shouldn't have to take our word for it. Open the tool that started all of this — HEIC to JPG — disconnect from the internet, drop a file in, and watch it work. That offline-still-working moment is the whole pitch.