About localdobe

localdobe is a small collection of PDF tools — merge, split, compress, edit, watermark, protect, unlock, and signature validation — that all run locally in your browser. No file you work with ever touches a server.

Why this exists

Working with PDFs has long meant choosing between two compromises. You could install a heavyweight desktop suite — a multi-gigabyte download with update prompts, bundled extras, and the features you actually need locked behind a subscription. Or you could use a “free” online tool that requires uploading your document — often a contract, a bank statement, a medical form — to a server you know nothing about, with retention policies you’ll never read, plus paywalls, watermarks, and page caps for good measure.

localdobe removes the choice: there’s nothing to install and nothing to upload. Modern browsers can do this work themselves, so localdobe just does the work on your machine instead of asking you to trust ours — free, with no watermarks and no account.

The tech

The tools are built on trusted, open-source PDF software that runs directly inside your browser tab, the same kind of professional PDF technology used by developers everywhere — one library handles document assembly like merging and page manipulation, another powers compression, encryption, and watermarking, and a third renders pages so you can preview and edit them. None of it requires a plugin, an account, or a network round-trip for your file data. If you’re curious about the details, our blog post on the technology behind it goes deeper.

Being honest about it

We’d rather you understand how this works than just trust a badge that says “private.” Read the privacy page for the specifics on what does and doesn’t leave your device, or check the blog for deeper dives into individual tools.

Open source

Trust shouldn’t rely on our word alone, so localdobe is fully open source. All of the code — under the permissive MIT License — is published in a public repository you can read, audit, or fork: github.com/murugu-21/localdobe. The PDF engine it runs on, pdfcpu, is open source too, under the Apache 2.0 License.

Get in touch

There’s no account system and no support portal — if a tool mishandles one of your files, a result looks wrong, or there’s a tool you wish existed, email [email protected]. Bug reports are just as welcome on the GitHub issue tracker, which is the better place for anything worth discussing in public. Since files are never uploaded, we can’t look at yours to debug a problem — describing what the document contains and which step failed is what helps most.

Support localdobe

There are no ads, no trackers on your files, no paid tier, and no plan to add one. Because nothing is uploaded, there’s no server bill to cover either — just a domain renewal and the hours that go into building and maintaining the tools. If localdobe saved you a bloated download or a risky upload, you can chip in: github.com/sponsors/murugu-21. Sponsoring never unlocks anything — every tool stays free for everyone, sponsor or not. Starring or sharing the repo helps just as much.