usetool.app - Drop a file, see what your browser can do with it

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Drop a file and UseTool tells you what you can do with it: a JPG gets 10 of 72 tools, an MP4 a different 10 - it reads the actual file, not the extension. Drop several at once and it suggests combinations. Chain steps into a workflow, save it, reuse it on the next batch. Everything runs on WebCodecs inside the tab, so there is no upload, no account and no queue - and the codec logic behind that is published as its own open source package.

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Every "compress your video" site wants the file on their server first. That always struck me as the wrong trade: you hand over a private recording to save 20 MB. UseTool does the work in the tab. Drop a file - image, video, audio, PDF, Office, archive - and it reads what the file actually is, then offers only the operations that fit. A JPG gets 10 of 72 tools, an MP4 gets a different 10. No menu to guess your way through. The part I am most curious about is workflows: chain a few steps into a recipe, save it, reuse it. The settings live in your browser, the files never do. Two things I got wrong before it worked. Most converters re-encode when a container rewrite would do - a MOV with H.264 already holds the exact bitstreams an MP4 needs. And you cannot read codec support off the user agent; the same Chrome differs per machine, so it has to be asked. I published that decision logic separately: github.com/obasio/browser-media-plan Honest limits: video stops at 2 GB, and HEIC only opens where the OS decodes it. Feedback welcome, especially on the file detection.