OBSCURA Converter

Convert files of every kind, on this device.

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US$4 a month or US$35 a year for the Converter, or US$9 a month or US$79 a year for everything. 7 days free. Stripe takes a card, and nothing is charged if you cancel before they end.

The Converter in the light theme: a queue of files, each with what it is and what it will become, and the options for the chosen ones on the right

Pictures, documents, spreadsheets, audio, video

HEIC to JPEG, Word to PDF

MOV to MP4 without re-encoding

Whole folders at once

A folder watched and converted

Location taken out of photos

The Converter at work

Taken from the Converter itself, with the site’s sample files and the invented ones it makes for itself.

A photo converted from JPEG to WebP, shown beside the original with the size of each — **Before and after.** Each result beside its original, with both sizes.

The same comparison in the dark theme — **Before and after.** Each result beside its original, with both sizes.

The start: a place to drop files or a folder, the commonest conversions, and the presets — **Start.** Drop files or a folder, or begin from a common conversion or a preset.

The same start in the dark theme — **Start.** Drop files or a folder, or begin from a common conversion or a preset.

What converts to what: every kind of file, by family, with the formats it can become — **What converts to what.** Every kind of file and what it can become, found by name.

The same list in the dark theme — **What converts to what.** Every kind of file and what it can become, found by name.

Everything it does

Pictures, documents, spreadsheets, audio and video, turned into the format you need, one file or a folder of thousands. Nothing is uploaded. Each file is known by its contents, not its name, and set to what it is most often wanted as; presets for the commonest jobs; an iPhone video made an MP4 without re-encoding; and the results saved as one zip or straight into a folder.

Before you start: Old .doc and .xls files, Apple Pages, Numbers and Keynote are not read, and a document converted between formats keeps its words, not every detail of its layout. What else it does not do

What it converts

Pictures

HEIC, JPEG, PNG, WebP, AVIF, GIF, BMP, TIFF, icons, camera raw (the full-size picture the camera stored inside), JPEG XL, Photoshop, SVG, Targa and QOI, to JPEG, PNG, WebP, AVIF where the browser writes it, GIF, TIFF, BMP, an icon, Targa, QOI, a traced SVG or a PDF. Resized, with the location taken out.

Documents

Word, OpenDocument, RTF, Markdown, HTML, plain text, EPUB and PDF, to PDF, Word, OpenDocument, Markdown, HTML, text, RTF or EPUB. PowerPoint and Excel to PDF; a PDF’s pages to pictures, a deck or a spreadsheet; the preview inside a Pages file to PDF.

Spreadsheets and data

Excel, OpenDocument, CSV, TSV, JSON, JSON lines, XML and SQLite, to any of those, SQL inserts, or a Markdown or HTML table, with numbers, dates and codes such as 007 kept as they are.

Audio

MP3, WAV, FLAC, Ogg, AAC, AIFF and the sound of a video, to MP3, WAV, AAC, FLAC, Opus or AIFF, at a new rate, in mono or stereo, with the loudness evened out for a podcast or a platform.

Video

MOV, MP4, WebM and MKV to MP4, MOV or WebM: an iPhone video without re-encoding, its location taken out, or made smaller. To an animated GIF, to stills every few seconds, or to one contact sheet.

And the rest

Fonts between TTF, OTF, WOFF and WOFF2; contacts between vCard, Google and Outlook CSV; calendars to and from CSV; GPX, KML, TCX and GeoJSON; SRT, WebVTT, SubStation and YouTube subtitles, retimed if you want; zip, 7-Zip, RAR, tar and gzip to zip or tar, or their files taken out; STL, OBJ, PLY, glTF, 3MF and STEP models.

One file, free

The single converters, such as Word to PDF and raw to JPEG, are free to open a file in and check the result. The Converter is for when you have many files, many kinds, or a folder to keep converting.

What it cannot do

Said now, so that nobody pays to find out.

Not every old format. Old .doc and .xls files, AVI, Apple Numbers and Keynote are not read; a Pages file only through the preview Pages saves inside it.
A document keeps its words, not every detail of its layout. A PDF is set in the site’s own typeface; a PDF made into Word or text comes back as its words, headings and lists, and a scanned page is not read (OPTIC does that).
Camera raw is not developed. The picture taken is the full-size one the camera stored inside the file.
Video needs a recent browser. Re-encoding uses the browser’s own encoders, in Chrome, Edge or Safari 17 and later; making an iPhone video an MP4 without re-encoding works anywhere. A re-encoded video keeps its first picture and sound tracks only.
JPEG XL is read, not written, and AVIF and AAC are offered only where the browser has their encoders.
Memory is the limit. Everything happens on this device, so a very long recording or a very large picture can be more than it holds; the Converter says so rather than failing quietly.
Formulas become values. A spreadsheet converted keeps each cell’s last saved value, not its formula, formatting or charts.

Opening the Converter…