Bulk File Operations
The only genuinely free batch file processor on the web. Compress, convert, watermark, and merge PDFs. Convert, resize, compress, and strip EXIF metadata from images. Everything runs in your browser — no uploads, no paywalls, no artificial limits. Just honest processing power powered by your device.
Your Files Never Leave Your Device
All processing happens entirely in your browser. No uploads, no servers, no tracking.
What type of files are you working with?
Choose the file type to see available batch operations.
Supported Formats
Process a wide range of file types directly in your browser
Portable Document Format
JPEG
Joint Photographic Experts Group
PNG
Portable Network Graphics
WebP
WebP image format
AVIF
AV1 Image File Format
BMP
Bitmap image file
GIF
Graphics Interchange Format
Frequently Asked Questions
Everything you need to know about bulk file processing
Is there a limit on how many files I can process?
Are my files uploaded to any server?
What file formats are supported?
Can I process files on my phone?
What happens if one file in a batch is corrupted?
How does PDF-to-image conversion work?
Does stripping EXIF data actually remove GPS location?
How do you handle file name collisions in the download?
Why is this tool free when others charge for batch processing?
Does this work offline?
Batch File Processing: Why Browser-Based Matters
How processing files in your browser keeps your data private and avoids paywalls.
Most batch file processing tools online require you to upload your files to their servers, then pay for the privilege of processing more than a handful at a time. iLovePDF, SmallPDF, and Adobe Acrobat all cap free batch processing at one to three files — not because the technology requires it, but because that is their business model. ForgePlug's Bulk File Operations tool takes a fundamentally different approach: everything happens in your browser, on your device, with no server involved at all.
Why Browser-Based Processing Is Better
When you process files in the browser, your data never leaves your device. There is no upload, no temporary server storage, and no third party that can access your documents. This matters especially for sensitive files — business contracts, medical records, personal photographs with GPS data, or financial documents. Browser-based processing eliminates the privacy risk entirely.
The trade-off is that browser-based processing is limited by your device's memory and CPU. A server has gigabytes of RAM and multiple CPU cores dedicated to the task; your browser shares resources with tabs, extensions, and the operating system. ForgePlug's tool is engineered to work within these real constraints — processing files in parallel streams, releasing memory as each file completes, and warning you honestly when a batch is large enough to risk browser instability.
How ForgePlug Handles Large Batches
Instead of processing all files simultaneously (which would crash the browser with large batches), ForgePlug uses bounded concurrency: it processes 3 files at a time in Web Workers, releasing each file's memory immediately after processing completes. Output files are streamed into a ZIP archive incrementally rather than held in memory until the end. This means you can process hundreds of files without running out of memory — as long as individual files are reasonably sized.
When a batch's total size is large enough to genuinely risk a browser crash (typically around 500 MB on desktop or 150 MB on mobile), the tool warns you proactively and suggests splitting the batch. This is an honest technical limitation, not an artificial cap — if your device can handle it, the tool lets you proceed.
PDF Operations
Compress reduces PDF file size by re-encoding and optimizing the document structure. Choose from three quality presets to balance file size against visual fidelity. Merge combines multiple PDFs into one, with drag-to-reorder control over the final page sequence. Watermark applies a text or image watermark to every page of every PDF, with configurable position, opacity, and size. Convert renders each PDF page as a JPG or PNG image, useful for sharing PDF content on platforms that do not support PDF uploads.
Image Operations
Convert changes image formats between JPG, PNG, WebP, and AVIF without uploading to a server. Resize scales images by percentage or fixed dimensions, with aspect-ratio lock as default. Strip EXIF Data removes GPS location tags and other metadata — this matters for privacy because photos taken with smartphones embed your exact GPS coordinates, and sharing those photos without stripping EXIF data shares your location. Compress reduces image file size using the Canvas API's built-in compression.
Tool Overview
A closer look at Bulk File Operations — how it works, who it's for, and where it fits in your workflow.
Batch processing is the point at which most free file tools stop being free. Compressing one PDF is offered everywhere; compressing the forty PDFs sitting in a folder is the feature that sits behind a subscription. The technical reason usually given is server cost — and for a server-based tool that is true, because every file has to be uploaded, processed on someone else's hardware, and downloaded again. Doing the work in the browser removes that cost entirely, which is why batch mode here is not capped at three files to nudge you toward an upgrade.
Running in the browser changes the engineering problem rather than eliminating it. The constraint stops being server capacity and becomes your device's memory. Processing forty large scanned PDFs by loading all of them at once is a reliable way to crash a tab, so the work is deliberately bounded: files are processed a few at a time rather than all at once or strictly one after another, each result is added to the output archive as soon as it is finished rather than held in memory until the end, and a warning appears before you start if the batch is large enough to be genuinely risky — with a lower threshold on mobile, where memory ceilings are tighter.
The heavy work runs in Web Workers, off the main thread. This is the difference between a tab that stays responsive with a live per-file progress list and one that freezes for ninety seconds and looks crashed. Failures are isolated per file too: one corrupt or password-protected PDF in a batch of fifty is reported against that file and skipped, rather than aborting the run and losing the other forty-nine results.
Everything comes back as a single ZIP with predictable names — original filename plus an operation suffix, with a number appended if two outputs would otherwise collide. PDF operations cover compress, merge, watermark, and page-to-image conversion; image operations cover format conversion, resizing, EXIF stripping, and compression. No file is uploaded at any point.
Key Features
Everything you get with this tool, at a glance.
No artificial file limit
The only ceiling is your device's memory, not a plan tier — batch mode is not the upsell.
Web Worker processing
Heavy work runs off the main thread, so the page stays responsive with live per-file progress.
Bounded concurrency
Files process a few at a time — faster than sequential, without the memory spike of all at once.
Per-file failure isolation
A corrupt or locked file is reported and skipped instead of aborting the whole batch.
Streamed ZIP output
Each result is added to the archive as it finishes rather than held in memory until the end.
Nothing leaves the device
Every operation runs locally in the browser — no upload, no server copy, no retention window.
How to Use Bulk File Operations
Get from zero to done in four quick steps — no account, no learning curve.
Pick a category and an operation
Choose PDF or image first, then the specific operation. The available settings change per operation — compression exposes a quality preset, resize exposes dimensions and an aspect-ratio lock.
Add files or a whole folder
Drag files in, browse for them, or select an entire folder. Anything that does not match the chosen category is filtered out and reported rather than silently dropped.
Heed the batch size warning
If a warning appears about total size, it is a genuine memory estimate rather than a paywall prompt. Splitting the batch in half is more reliable than pushing through and risking a crashed tab.
For merge, set the order before running
Merge output follows the list order, so arrange files first. Use the arrows to move a file up or down; on touch devices the rows can be dragged directly.
Review the per-file results
The results list shows every output with its size, and any failures with the reason. Check it before downloading so a skipped file does not go unnoticed.
Practical Examples
Real input and output pairs so you know exactly what to expect.
Compress a folder of scans
Input
34 scanned PDFs, 180 MB total
Output
34 compressed PDFs in one ZIP, each named originalname-compressed.pdf
Strip GPS data before sharing photos
Input
60 JPEGs straight from a phone
Output
60 re-encoded images with all EXIF metadata removed, named originalname-no-exif.jpg
Convert a multi-page PDF to images
Input
One 12-page PDF, output set to JPG
Output
12 separate images named document-page-1.jpg through document-page-12.jpg
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