Filee README

The project's README from github.com/KnifeLemon/Filee. As one markdown file: README.md.

Filee: Drag. Drop. Converted.

A free, open-source file converter you use by dragging.
Hold a key (Ctrl, Option on macOS), drag files and drop them on a format in the donut that opens at your cursor.

Website · Download · Install · Command line · Docs

CI Latest release Downloads Windows 10 | 11 macOS | Linux preview MIT license

English · 한국어 · 简体中文

Right at your cursor
No app window to open. The formats appear where you already are, only the ones that make sense for the files you drag.
180 formats, no other software
Images, PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, HWP, e-books, archives, fonts and CAD work without Office, Hancom Office or LibreOffice.
Stays on your computer
Nothing is uploaded. Filee works offline and saves the result next to the original.

See it in action

Dragging trip.jpg with Ctrl held: a donut of formats opens at the cursor, the file is dropped on PNG, a progress ring completes and trip.png appears
Watch the 27-second video and try the interactive demo on filee.sh

Install

Download from Releases.

Windows 10/11 (64-bit)

Run Filee-<version>-win-Setup.exe. It asks for administrator rights once and installs Filee for all users. Setup also offers the File Explorer menu entry, starting at sign-in, the filee command and the optional engines (video and audio with FFmpeg, about 100 MB; rare formats with LibreOffice, calibre, Ghostscript or Pandoc).

Without installing: unzip Filee-<version>-win-Portable.zip and run Filee.exe.

When a new release is out, Filee shows it in the menu and the tray. Update downloads the installer, checks its SHA-256 against the release and installs it, keeping your settings and engines. The portable copy opens the release page instead.

macOS 14 or later (preview)

  1. Download Filee-<version>-osx-arm64.tar.gz (Apple silicon) or Filee-<version>-osx-x64.tar.gz (Intel).
  2. Open Terminal in the extracted folder and run ./install.sh. It copies Filee.app to ~/Applications and adds the filee command to ~/.local/bin.
  3. The build is not notarized yet, so macOS blocks the first start. Allow it in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open Anyway.
  4. Filee asks for Accessibility permission, which Option+drag needs. It starts working as soon as you switch Filee on.

"Convert with Filee" appears when you right-click files in Finder. FFmpeg and Ghostscript come from Homebrew (brew install ffmpeg ghostscript); Filee finds them by itself.

Linux x64 and ARM64 (preview)

  1. Download Filee-<version>-linux-x64.tar.gz or Filee-<version>-linux-arm64.tar.gz.
  2. Run ./install.sh in the extracted folder. It installs for your user only (no root), adds Filee to the app menu and the filee command to ~/.local/bin. Python 3 is required.

Drag gestures need an X11 session (on Ubuntu, "Ubuntu on Xorg" on the login screen). Wayland doesn't let apps watch global input, so there Filee works through the drop zone and the right-click action in Nautilus, Nemo, Thunar or Dolphin. Ubuntu 24.04 is the tested baseline; INSTALL.txt in the package lists the system libraries.

Features

Screenshots

Donut toolbar editor with profiles and presets Home screen with the drop zone and recent conversions
Arrange the donut by drag and drop, one profile per file type Home: drop zone and recent conversions
Preset editor with quality and output options Donut toolbar editor in the dark theme
Presets: quality, size, PDF pages, output folder and file names Dark theme

Formats

From To
Images: JPG, PNG, WEBP, AVIF, TIFF, BMP, GIF, ICO, ICNS, JPEG XL, JPEG 2000, PSD/PSB, TGA, PPM, HEIC; GIMP XCF, camera RAW (CR2, CR3, NEF, ARW, DNG, …) read any of these (HEIC⁵), PDF, resized, grayscale
Vector: SVG, SVGZ, EMF, WMF, AI · EPS, PS¹ · CDR, VSD, CGM, ODG² PDF (vector), PNG and other images, SVG ↔ SVGZ, PDF → EPS/PS¹
PDF DOCX, HWPX, TXT, PNG, JPG, TIFF, CBZ; merge, split, page ranges
Documents: DOCX, DOCM, DOTX, EML · DOC, ODT, RTF, WPS, WPD, Pages, …² PDF, DOCX, HWPX, EPUB, TXT, HTML
Spreadsheets: XLSX, XLSM, XLS, ODS, CSV, TSV · Numbers, ET² PDF, XLSX, ODS, CSV, TSV, HWPX, HTML
Presentations: PPTX, PPTM, POTX, PPSX · PPT, ODP, Keynote² PDF, PNG, JPG, DOCX, HWPX
HWP: HWP, HWPX PDF, PNG, DOCX, HWPX ↔ HWP, TXT, Markdown, HTML
Text: TXT, Markdown, HTML · reStructuredText, LaTeX³ PDF, DOCX, HWPX, EPUB
E-books: EPUB, MOBI, AZW3, AZW, AZW4, FB2, CBZ, CBR, CB7, HTMLZ, TXTZ · LIT, LRF, CHM, PDB, …⁴ PDF, EPUB, DOCX, TXT, HTML, HWPX · MOBI, AZW3⁴
Video⁵: MP4, MOV, MKV, WEBM, AVI, WMV, FLV, MPEG, TS, M2TS, 3GP, OGV, VOB, … MP4, WEBM, MOV, MKV, AVI, GIF, MP3, M4A, 720p
Audio⁵: MP3, M4A, AAC, WAV, FLAC, OGG, OPUS, WMA, AIFF, AMR, … MP3, M4A, WAV, FLAC, OGG, OPUS, AAC
Archives: ZIP, 7Z, RAR, TAR, TAR.GZ, TAR.BZ2, TAR.XZ, GZ, ISO, CAB, DMG, ALZ, EGG, … extract, ZIP, 7Z, TAR, TAR.GZ; any files → one ZIP
CAD: DWG, DXF PDF, SVG, PNG, DWG ↔ DXF
Fonts: TTF, OTF, WOFF, WOFF2, EOT each other

Everything without a mark works out of the box, without Microsoft Office, Hancom Office or LibreOffice (Filee doesn't use Office or Hancom Office even when they are installed). Marked formats need an optional engine, downloaded only when your computer doesn't have it: ¹ Ghostscript, ² LibreOffice, ³ Pandoc, ⁴ calibre, ⁵ FFmpeg. docs/ENGINES.md lists what each engine keeps and leaves out.

Command line

The filee command converts files and watches folders without opening the app, with the same engines and presets. On Windows, tick Add the "filee" command to PATH in Setup; on macOS and Linux, install.sh adds it.

filee convert photo.heic --to jpg
filee convert *.png --to webp --quality 80 -o converted
filee convert D:\Scans --recursive --preset to-pdf --json
filee watch D:\Inbox --to pdf --move-originals
filee formats heic
filee presets
Command What it does
filee convert Converts files, wildcards (*.heic) and folders with --to <format> or --preset <preset>
filee watch Converts files that land in a folder until Ctrl+C
filee formats Lists every format, or what one format converts to
filee presets Lists the presets saved in the app

--json prints the result for scripts and other programs. Exit codes: 0 all converted, 1 some files failed, 2 wrong arguments or a missing input, 3 nothing to convert. Every option is in the command line guide and in filee help.

Documentation

I want to… Start here
Use the command line filee.sh/cli
Understand how the app fits together docs/ARCHITECTURE.md
Know which engine converts what, and their licenses docs/ENGINES.md
Add a new conversion docs/ADDING-A-CONVERTER.md
Translate Filee into my language docs/ADDING-A-LANGUAGE.md
Send a pull request CONTRIBUTING.md

Build from source

Requirements: .NET 10 SDK on Windows 10/11, macOS 14+ or Linux.

git clone https://github.com/KnifeLemon/Filee.git
cd Filee
pwsh build/fetch-fonts.ps1                       # optional: Noto Sans UI fonts
pwsh build/fetch-engines.ps1 -Only rhwp,pandoc   # optional engines for development (all: omit -Only, ~475 MB)
dotnet run --project src/Filee.App
dotnet test

Settings live in %APPDATA%\Filee (Windows), ~/Library/Application Support/Filee (macOS) or ~/.config/Filee (Linux). Builds from source never touch the context menu or auto-start. pwsh build/build-installer.ps1 builds the Windows installer into Releases/; pwsh build/build-portable.ps1, run on a Mac or Linux, builds that system's package. More in CONTRIBUTING.md.

Project What it is
src/Filee.Core Formats, presets, toolbar profiles, settings, route planner, job queue. No UI, no OS APIs.
src/Filee.Engines One class per conversion engine (IConverter), including the HWPX writer.
src/Filee.Platform.Windows Explorer integration, context menu, auto-start.
src/Filee.Platform.MacOS, src/Filee.Platform.Linux Finder service, file manager actions, gestures and auto-start on macOS and Linux.
src/Filee.App Avalonia UI: donut toolbar, settings window, tray, toasts.
src/Filee.Cli The filee command line (convert, watch, formats, presets) on the same engines and presets.
tests/* xUnit v3 tests, including headless UI rendering.

Contributing

Pull requests are welcome. Good first steps are adding a converter and adding a language. If Filee saves you some clicks, a ⭐ helps other people find it.

Filee is free and stays free. If you'd like to support its development, you can sponsor it on GitHub Sponsors (or Fairy from Korea).

Code signing policy

Free code signing provided by SignPath.io, certificate by SignPath Foundation.

Filee has applied for this program. Until it is approved, releases are not code-signed and Windows SmartScreen may warn when you run the installer ("More info" → "Run anyway"). macOS packages are ad-hoc signed and not notarized.

Only the installer and files built by this repository's GitHub Actions release workflow are signed, and every release is approved by hand. Bundled third-party programs (rhwp, 7-Zip) keep their own publishers' files.

Privacy policy

Filee converts files on your own computer and never uploads them. It collects no usage data and sends no telemetry. It connects to the internet only:

License

MIT. Bundled third-party components keep their own licenses, listed in THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md.

Star history

Filee (KnifeLemon/Filee)

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2.1K ·GitHub
What is this?Filee is a free, open-source file converter for Windows, macOS and Linux that handles 180+ formats — images, PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, HWP/HWPX, video, audio, e-books, CAD and archives — by letting you drag files onto a floating format menu, all processed locally with no upload.
Do I open an app window to convert files, or is it something else?Mostly not — hold a modifier key (Ctrl, or Option on macOS), drag your files, and a 'donut' toolbar of relevant formats pops up right at your cursor; the app window, right-click menu, keyboard shortcut, watch folders and a CLI are alternative ways in.
Do I need Microsoft Office, Hancom Office or LibreOffice installed?No — most of the 180+ formats convert without any of them. Some less common formats need optional free engines (LibreOffice, Pandoc, calibre, Ghostscript or FFmpeg) that Filee downloads automatically only if your machine doesn't already have them.
Any catches with the macOS or Linux builds?Both are marked preview. macOS builds aren't notarized yet, so macOS blocks the first launch and you must allow it manually in Security settings. On Linux the drag gesture needs an X11 session — it doesn't work under Wayland, where you're limited to the drop zone and file-manager right-click actions.
Does Filee send my files or any usage data anywhere?No — everything converts on your own computer and files are never uploaded. It collects no usage data and sends no telemetry; its only network calls are checking GitHub for new releases and downloading optional engines you choose to install.
What does the command-line tool add beyond dragging files?The 'filee' command converts files, expands wildcards, and watches folders without opening the app, using the same engines and presets. It supports --json output for scripts, and exit codes that distinguish full success, partial failures and bad input.
What are watch folders for?You point Filee at a folder, and any file that lands there (e.g. after a download) gets converted automatically once the copy finishes, optionally filtered by extension or a regex, so the folder acts like an inbox.
Can it chain several conversion steps automatically?Yes — Filee plans multi-step routes when no single engine can do a conversion directly, for example HWP to HWPX to DOCX, or EPUB to HWPX to PDF to PNG, picking the best engine for each step.
Why does it specifically support HWP/HWPX?HWP and HWPX are Korean Hancom Office word-processor formats that most converters ignore; Filee converts them to PDF, DOCX, Markdown and more without needing Hancom Office installed.
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KnifeLemon
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