About SquishyFile

Hi, I'm J.Julian

I'm a developer, and I build SquishyFile on my own, without a company or investors behind it. I write the code, I write the guides on the blog, and I answer the emails.

I've always had a side project going. I like the loop of building something small, putting it in front of real people and fixing whatever they trip over. I've been posting on X since 2022 about AI, coding and how small websites make money, and these days most of those posts are build updates for this site: @hlinhbuilds.

SquishyFile is also a tool I actually use. My phone runs out of storage all the time, and I'd rather shrink my videos than pay for a bigger iCloud plan or delete clips I want to keep.

What SquishyFile is

SquishyFile is a free set of video tools that run entirely in your web browser. You can compress, convert, upscale, filter and transcribe a video without uploading it anywhere, because your own device does the processing. You don't need an account, and I don't put a watermark on anything you export.

How it works

The site is a SvelteKit app hosted on Cloudflare. When you drop a file into a tool, the page loads the code it needs and your browser does the work:

• Compressing and converting use WebCodecs, the video encoder built into modern browsers (often hardware-accelerated), or a WebAssembly build of FFmpeg, depending on what your browser supports and what the job needs.
• Transcripts and background removal run small AI models on your device through ONNX Runtime Web. Your browser downloads a model once and caches it, so the next run starts faster.
• Upscaling and filters run as shaders on your graphics card through WebGPU and WebGL.

That setup means there's no upload, so you never wait in an upload queue. It also means the site keeps working the same way whether you have one video or a hundred. You can even install SquishyFile like an app from your browser's address bar.

Don't take my word for it: check that nothing gets uploaded

Anyone can write "your files never leave your device" on a website. Here's how you can check it yourself in about a minute on a desktop browser:

1. Open any SquishyFile tool, then open your browser's developer tools (F12, or Cmd+Option+I on a Mac) and switch to the Network tab.
2. Drop a video in and run the tool.
3. Watch the requests. You'll see the page download its own code and, for the AI tools, model files. You won't see a request that sends your video out, and the upload size of each request stays tiny no matter how big your file is.

The Privacy Policy covers what the site does collect, which is standard analytics and advertising cookies, not your files.

What the tools can't do

Running everything on your device has real trade-offs, and I'd rather you know them up front:

• Speed depends on your hardware. A recent laptop compresses a video much faster than an old phone. A long 4K file on a low-memory phone can run out of memory and fail, and a desktop browser handles those far better.
• The GPU tools need a modern browser. The upscaler and the background remover lean on WebGPU, so they work best in a recent Chrome or Edge. On older hardware or browsers they run slower or don't start at all.
• Transcripts are only as good as the audio. Clear speech comes out close to word-for-word. Music, crosstalk and heavy background noise cause mistakes, so check a transcript before you publish it.
• Upscaling can't invent real detail. The upscaler makes soft video look sharper and cleaner, but it can't recover detail that was never recorded. I explain why in Does video upscaling actually work?

If a tool fails on your file, tell me. Most of the fixes on this site started as a bug report.

Build log

I ship updates almost every day. Here's how the site has grown so far in 2026:

I post the day-to-day version of this on X, including the parts that don't work yet.

How I write the guides

I write every tool page and every post on the blog myself. I base them on how the tools actually work, since I built them, and on the questions people send me. When I change how a tool behaves, I update the pages that describe it and the "Last updated" date at the top. Ads and sponsor boxes are labeled and sit apart from the writing. No sponsor gets to edit what I write.

Why it's free

Because your device does the processing, I don't pay for servers to crunch your videos. That cost is what forces most online video tools to cap file sizes, add watermarks or push you toward a subscription. Without it, I can keep every tool free and uncapped.

Ads cover the rest: hosting, domains and the time I spend building new tools. If an ad ever gets in the way of using a tool, let me know and I'll move it.

Where the site is headed

SquishyFile is going all-in on video. I'd rather build one site that handles everything you need to do to a video file than spread out into unrelated tools. Next on my list: better upscaling, more formats and more of the small, annoying video fixes that big editing apps make you pay for.

If there's a video tool you wish existed, or something's broken, email me at contact@squishyfile.com or use the Contact page. I read every message.