About CrunchyPDF

A free, privacy-first PDF toolkit that runs entirely in your browser.

CrunchyPDF started from a simple frustration: every "free online PDF tool" wanted us to upload private documents — contracts, tax returns, medical scans — to a stranger's server just to shrink or merge them. We thought that was backwards. So we built a toolkit that does the work on your machine, where your files belong.

What CrunchyPDF is

CrunchyPDF is a collection of five everyday PDF tools — Compress, Merge, Split, Image → PDF, and PDF → Image — that run 100% inside your web browser. There is nothing to install, no account to create, and no file to upload. You open the page, pick a file, and the work happens locally using your device's own processor. When you're done, the result downloads straight to you.

Why we built it

Most online PDF services follow the same pattern: your file is sent to a remote server, processed there, and sent back. That model has real downsides. It exposes sensitive documents to interception and data breaches, it depends on the provider's storage and retention policies, and it forces you to trust that the company deletes your files when it says it will. For documents like legal agreements, financial records, or anything containing personal information, that's a lot of trust to hand over for a routine task.

Modern browsers are powerful enough that none of this is necessary. The same compression and page-manipulation work can run on the client side — in JavaScript, on your own hardware. We built CrunchyPDF to prove that a genuinely useful PDF toolkit can be fast, free, and private all at once.

How it works (the short version)

When you select a file, your browser reads it into memory. Our code — built on well-known open-source libraries — parses and manipulates the document right there:

• Compress re-renders each page through PDF.js and re-encodes it as a compressed image, then rebuilds the file with PDFKit.
• Merge and Split use pdf-lib to copy pages losslessly, preserving text, links, and form fields.
• Image → PDF embeds your images at their native dimensions into a new document.
• PDF → Image rasterises pages and bundles multi-page exports into a ZIP with JSZip.

At no point does a file leave your device. You can confirm this in your browser's developer tools by watching the Network tab while a tool runs — you won't see your document being sent anywhere. Want the full technical walkthrough? Read How PDF compression actually works.

Our principles

• Privacy by design. We can't leak what we never receive. The architecture itself keeps your files private.
• Free and unconditional. No paywalls, no "2 free conversions a day," no premium tier hiding the useful features.
• No accounts, no tracking of files. We don't ask who you are, and we never log the documents you process.
• Transparency. We build on open-source libraries and explain plainly how each tool works.

How we keep the lights on

CrunchyPDF is free to use and costs money to host and maintain. We support it with unobtrusive advertising (via Google AdSense). Ads relate to general browsing activity only — never to the contents of your files, which we cannot see. You can read exactly how advertising data is handled, and how to opt out of personalised ads, in our Privacy Policy.

Get in touch

Found a bug, have a feature idea, or just want to say hello? We genuinely read everything. Visit our Contact page or email support@crunchypdf.com.