FlowForge FAQ

A1: A free page with five workflow tools, each on its own tab under the heading: Rename files (new names for many files at once, built step by step), Tables (CSV and Excel files cleaned and reshaped by steps), Email lists (addresses found, checked and tidied), Schema and types (JSON Schema, TypeScript, Zod and Pydantic from example data or a list of fields) and Forms (a form built field by field and saved as a web page). The tools pass work to each other: a table can become a schema or a form, and a column of emails goes to the email cleaner.

A2: It is free and there is no account or registration. Like every page on ZeroDataUpload, it is supported by advertising.

A3: No. Files, tables, email lists, example data and form answers are read and worked on by your browser on your device. The page itself, its ads and its analytics load from the internet as on any website, but your files, their names and what you type are never sent with them.

A4: The settings, steps and recipes of all five tools, and in the browser's own database the open table and the other tables you opened, the email list and the Schema tool's text, the form answers and the last folder you chose for renaming. Nothing is kept until you change something. Close (Tables), Clear (Email lists) and Clear (form answers) remove what each tool keeps.

A5: Current versions of Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari on computers and phones. Renaming files directly in their folder needs Chrome or Edge on a computer; every browser can download renamed copies or a rename script.

A6: Yes. Tab reaches every button and box. While you are using the tool, 1 to 5 switch tools and ? opens the help window; Alt with the up or down arrow moves a step. Menus open with Enter and move with the arrow keys, and Escape closes them.

A7: Choose a folder (or drop one on the page), add files, or type or paste names. Then add steps on the left, or choose a ready-made set. Each step works on the name the step above it made and says how many names it changed. The list on the right shows every old and new name, with what was removed and what was added, before anything changes.

A8: Replace text (every match, the first or the last, with or without a pattern), Add text (at the start, the end, after a number of letters, or before or after other text), Remove (copy marks such as (1) or - Copy, text in brackets, letters at the start or end or from a position, text between two marks, numbers, symbols), Change case (eight kinds, from lowercase to kebab-case), Number (start, step, digits and where), New name from a pattern, Tidy up (spaces, accents, safe for Windows or web addresses, a longest length) and Extension (lowercase, uppercase, jpeg to jpg and the like, change or remove).

A9: The name now and the name before the steps, a number with the digits you choose, the date the photo was taken (read from the photo itself, or the date the file was changed when a photo has none), the date the file was changed, today's date, the folder, the picture size in pixels, the camera, the file size and the extension. Dates can be written in many ways, such as YYYY-MM-DD, DD MMM YYYY or YYYY-MM-DD HH.mm.

A10: Every new name: empty names, a / in a name, names longer than the 255 bytes most computers allow, and two files given the same name or a name another file already has are problems, and those files are left as they are. Characters Windows does not allow, a dot or space at the end, names Windows keeps for itself, and names starting with a dot or a space get a warning.

A11: Only when you ask. In Chrome and Edge on a computer, with a folder chosen through Choose folder, Rename in the folder renames the files themselves after you confirm, and Undo puts the old names back straight afterwards. A swap (a to b and b to a) and a change of capital letters only go through a temporary name, so no file is ever overwritten.

A12: Download renamed copies as a zip (the files are copied, not changed; up to 65,000 files and about 4 GB), or get a rename script for Windows PowerShell, the Command Prompt or Mac and Linux, with an undo script too. You can also download the list of old and new names as a CSV file.

A13: Each script lists every rename and changes nothing until you type YES. It works only in the folder it is saved in, never replaces a file that is already there, and goes through a temporary name for swaps. A Windows script leaves out any name with characters Windows does not allow, and says how many it left out.

A14: Up to 20,000 files or names in one list. A typed name longer than 1,000 characters is left out, as no computer allows such a name. System files such as Thumbs.db, desktop.ini and .DS_Store are left out of a folder.

A15: CSV, TSV and text files, Excel .xlsx files (any sheet), JSON, Markdown and HTML tables, up to 50 MB, or cells pasted from Excel or Google Sheets. The separator and whether the first row names the columns are found for you, and can be set by hand. An old .xls file needs to be saved as .xlsx or CSV first. Up to 200,000 rows, 1,000 columns and 4,000,000 cells are read; a bigger table is cut to fit, with a note.

A16: Click its name: sort it, split it (at a separator, into first, middle and last name, after set letter counts, or into rows), join it with others, rename it, pull out an email, domain, number, digits, web address or the text before or after a mark, clean spaces, change case, find and replace, format dates, clean numbers or phone numbers, fill empty cells from above, keep or remove rows by it, remove rows with the same value, or remove it.

A17: Dates written as 2025-01-31, 31/01/2025, 01/31/2025, 31 Jan 2025, January 31, 2025 and Excel's own day numbers are read; for 03/04/2025 the tool looks at the column, and you can say whether it means 3 April or March 4. Numbers such as Rs 1,23,456.50, (1.234,5) or 12% are read with the decimal mark found from the data or set by you, and written as 1234.56, 1,234.56, 1,23,456.78 or 1.234,56.

A18: Your steps saved under a name (up to 100 recipes). Open next month's file, keep the steps when asked, or choose the recipe: the same clean-up runs on the new table. Click a step's number to see the table at that point, with new columns and changed cells marked.

A19: Look up from another table brings in columns from a second file where a column matches, as VLOOKUP does, and writes your text where there is no match. Add rows from another table stacks a second file under this one, with columns matched by name or by position, and can add a column saying where each row came from. Up to 10 other tables can be open; Close forgets them with the table.

A20: As CSV (with a comma, semicolon, tab or bar, and a mark so Excel shows every letter correctly), as an Excel file with a bold header row that stays in view, as JSON (records, rows or JSON Lines, with numbers and nested names if you like), Markdown, HTML or SQL (CREATE TABLE and INSERT statements). Copy for Excel puts the table on the clipboard, and Split into files makes one file per value of a column or per so many rows, as one zip of up to 5,000 files.

A21: It is standard SQL: text in single quotes with any quote inside doubled, empty cells as NULL, and column types worked out from the data. MySQL by default also reads a backslash inside text as an escape, so for text with backslashes turn on its NO_BACKSLASH_ESCAPES mode before running the file.

A22: In any text: one per line, separated by commas or semicolons, in Name <address> form, in a spreadsheet column headed Email (the name columns come along), in a contacts file (vCard), as mailto: links, and written out as name [at] example [dot] com or name at example dot com.

A23: Only the written address is checked, on your device: one @, something before and after it, no spaces or characters that are not allowed, a name part of at most 64 characters, a domain with valid parts, at most 254 characters in all, and a domain ending from IANA's list of 1,436 endings (12 November 2026). No mail server is contacted, so the tool cannot tell whether a mailbox exists.

A24: A doubled @, extra dots, a well-known mail domain with one or two slips such as gmial.com, hotmial.com or yahooo.com, a missing ending such as gmail with no .com, and an ending that does not exist close to a common one, such as .con. Each fix is shown with what changed, and Undo fix keeps the address as it was written.

A25: It treats addresses that reach the same inbox as one: Gmail ignores dots in the name part and anything after a +, so a.sha@gmail.com, asha@gmail.com and asha+news@gmail.com count once, and googlemail.com is the same as gmail.com.

A26: Throwaway addresses from 111 well-known services that give out addresses that stop working (on unless you untick it), shared addresses such as info@, sales@, support@ and noreply@ (off unless you tick it), addresses on your do-not-send list (an address, or @example.com for a whole domain), and any address you take out by hand. A keep list can do the opposite.

A27: Copy it one per line, separated by commas or semicolons, with names for the To box, or download it as text, CSV, JSON or a contacts file. In groups of splits the list for sending in batches, since email services limit how many people one account can write to in a day. Email them (Bcc) opens your own email program with up to 50 addresses. Up to 50,000 addresses are checked in one list.

A28: Example JSON (one record or many), JSON Lines, a CSV, an existing JSON Schema, or a list of fields in plain words, one per line, such as email*: email, age: whole number 18-120 or plan: one of free, pro, team. A star means required, a question mark optional, indented lines belong to the group above, and words after # describe the field.

A29: Which fields every example has (required) and which can be empty, whether a field holds text, whole numbers, numbers, true or false, lists or groups, which hold dates, times, emails, links, IDs or IP addresses, and which have only a few values (a list of choices). You can also keep an example value, a description from the field name and the lowest and highest values seen, and allow no other fields.

A30: A JSON Schema (2020-12 or draft 7), TypeScript interfaces with optional fields marked by ?, a Zod schema for Zod 3 and 4, and Pydantic 2 models (EmailStr needs the pydantic email extra). Example data makes 1 to 200 made-up records that fit the schema, for tests and demos.

A31: Paste a record or a list of records. Each problem is shown with where it is, such as /address/city, and what is wrong in plain words: a missing field, the wrong kind of value, a value not in the list, too short or too long, out of range, not in the expected form. A check stops after 200 problems, or when a schema and data would take too long to check fully, and says so.

A32: Start from one of six examples or an empty form, then add fields: short or long text, email, phone, web address, number, whole number, date, time, date and time, yes or no, choose one, choose several, rating, a list of answers, a group of fields or a repeating group. Each field can have help text, an example, limits, a pattern and a message, and be required or half width. The form on the right works as you build it.

A33: In this page, pressing the form's button saves an answer in this browser (up to 5,000). Answers collect into a table you can download as CSV, Excel or JSON, open in Tables, or clear. Save as a web page gives one HTML file with no other files needed: it checks every answer by itself, then shows the answers to the person, sends them as JSON to an https address of your own, or opens their email program with the answers written in. This site never sees them.