ToolForge FAQ
Answers about ToolForge, from comparing two texts to finding duplicate files.
Last Updated: November 15, 2026
1. Basics
Q1: What is ToolForge?
A1: A free page with nine everyday tools: Compare (two versions of a text, line by line and word by word), Notes (notes with folders, tags and checklists), Clean text (a text through steps you choose), Clipboard (a list of text and pictures you use again and again), Open links (many links at once), Text to table, Table to CSV, JSON to Excel (and back) and Duplicate files (exact copies, copies by name and look-alike photos in a folder). Each one has a tab under the heading.
Q2: Is it free, and do I need an account?
A2: It is free and there is no account or registration. Like every page on ZeroDataUpload, it is supported by advertising.
Q3: Are my files, texts and notes uploaded?
A3: No. The files are read by your browser on this device, and their names and contents are not sent anywhere. Everything you paste, type or open is read and compared by your browser too. Your notes, clips, recipes, sets of links and the text in the boxes are kept only in this browser. A backup is a file you download and keep yourself.
Q4: What is kept in my browser?
A4: Your notes, the text you leave in each box (up to 200,000 characters per box), your cleaning steps and recipes, the clips and their pictures, the sets of links you save, an edited table and the tool's settings. Nothing is kept until you type, keep or change something. Delete everything, in the Settings and backup window, removes it all.
Q5: Which browsers does it work in?
A5: Current versions of Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari on computers and phones. On a phone, Compare shows one column and Notes shows the list and the note one after the other. Moving or deleting duplicates directly in a folder works in Chrome and Edge on a computer; other browsers can read a folder and get a script for the changes.
Q6: Can I use it with the keyboard?
A6: Yes. Tab reaches every button and box. While you are using the tool and not typing, 1 to 9 switch tools, / opens Find anything, ? opens the help window, N and P jump to the next and previous change in Compare, N starts a new note in Notes, Ctrl+Z and Ctrl+Y undo and redo table changes, and in the Clipboard list the arrow keys move between clips and Enter copies one.
2. Compare
Q7: How does Compare find the differences?
A7: It splits both texts into lines and finds the shortest set of removed and added lines that turns the first version into the second, with the method published by Eugene Myers in 1986 that git and GNU diff use. A removed line and an added line that are alike are then paired and shown as one changed line, with only the changed words or letters marked.
Q8: What do the colours mean?
A8: A red line was removed from the original, a green line was added in the changed text, and a changed line shows the old line in red and the new one in green with the changed words in a stronger colour. Side by side shows a striped space where a line has no partner on the other side.
Q9: What are the options?
A9: Side by side or One column (with - and + in front of each line, the way patch files show them; phones always get one column), Words or Letters for the marks inside a changed line, Ignore capital letters and Ignore spaces. Swap exchanges the two texts and Clear empties both (Undo brings them back).
Q10: What does the percentage mean?
A10: It says how much of the two texts stayed the same, counted in characters: the unchanged lines and the unchanged parts of changed lines, out of both texts together. Two identical texts are 100% the same.
Q11: What is Copy as patch?
A11: The differences in the unified patch format that git and other tools read: a --- and +++ line, then each group of changes starting with a line such as @@ -12,4 +12,5 @@ and the lines with a space, a minus or a plus in front, with three unchanged lines around each change.
Q12: How long can the texts be?
A12: Up to 2,000,000 characters and 200,000 lines on each side. Long runs of unchanged lines fold away behind a Show button, and up to 6,000 lines of changes are drawn at once. Text of up to 200,000 characters in each box is kept for next time.
3. Notes
Q13: How do I write a note?
A13: Press New note (or N) and type. The note saves as you type. A line starting with - [ ] is a checklist item, - or a number starts a list, # starts a heading, **bold**, *italic*, ~~struck out~~, ==marked== and [text](https://...) links work, and Enter carries a list on. The buttons above the note do the same.
Q14: What is the preview?
A14: Preview shows the note as it reads, with headings, lists, links and checklists. Tick a checklist item there and the note's text is ticked too. Links in a note open in a new tab when you click them.
Q15: How do folders, tags and pins work?
A15: Each note sits in one folder; New folder adds one (up to 100), and the folder menu renames or deletes it (its notes move to another folder). Writing #word anywhere in a note tags it, and the tags are listed beside the folders to filter by. A pinned note stays at the top of the list.
Q16: What happens when I delete a note?
A16: It goes to Trash, where it stays for 30 days and can be restored. After 30 days it is deleted for good the next time the tool opens. Delete now and Empty trash delete for good at once, after asking.
Q17: Can I search my notes?
A17: Yes. The search box finds notes whose title or text holds every word you type, and marks the words in the list. The list can be sorted by the last edit, the newest first or the title.
Q18: How do I save or move my notes?
A18: Download all saves every note as a Markdown file in a .zip (one folder per notes folder), in one Markdown file, or as a notes file for importing later. Each note's menu downloads it as Markdown or text, prints it, copies it or sends it to another tool. Import reads Markdown, text and notes files, also by dropping them on the page.
Q19: How many notes can I keep?
A19: Up to 2,000 notes, those in Trash included, and 1,500,000 characters of notes in all; one note holds up to 200,000 characters. An import adds notes while there is room and says how many were left out.
4. Clean Text
Q20: How does Clean text work?
A20: Your text passes through the steps in the middle column, from top to bottom, and the result appears on the right. Each step says what it changed; click that note to see the text just after that step. Drag a step by its number (or press the arrow keys on it) to move it, and untick it to skip it.
Q21: What steps are there?
A21: Over 30, in groups: spaces (trim, double spaces, odd spaces, invisible characters, tabs), lines (empty and repeated lines, sorting, rejoining broken lines, joining and splitting, numbering, bullets, keeping or removing lines), columns and lengths, find and replace, removing HTML tags, links, emails, numbers or brackets, keeping only emails, links, phone numbers or numbers, quotes and dashes, accents, case, and encoding.
Q22: What does Found in your text show?
A22: What is hiding in the text: invisible characters, non-breaking or odd spaces, spaces at line ends, double spaces, tabs, curly quotes, long dashes, ellipsis characters, runs of blank lines, repeated lines, HTML tags and codes, and reference marks such as [1]. Each has a button that adds the step that fixes it.
Q23: Can I use patterns (regular expressions)?
A23: Yes, in Find and replace and in Keep or remove lines. Some patterns can take very long on some texts; if the page ever stops while a step with a pattern is working, the next time it opens those steps are switched off and a note says so, so you can check the pattern.
Q24: What are recipes?
A24: A recipe is a saved set of steps. Ten come ready-made, such as Tidy up, Fix text copied from a PDF, Clean up a list and Plain text from a web page; you can save up to 100 of your own. Choosing a recipe replaces your steps, and Undo brings them back.
5. Clipboard and Links
Q25: How does the clipboard list work?
A25: Keep text by typing or pasting it and pressing Keep, by pressing Ctrl V on the Clipboard screen, or by copying in another tool. One click copies a clip back. Write {{name}} for a blank to fill in when you copy; {{date}}, {{time}} and {{day}} fill themselves. Pinned clips stay when the list is cleared.
Q26: What does Keep what I copy in other apps do?
A26: When ticked, each time you come back to this tab the tool reads what is on the clipboard and keeps it, if it is new. The browser asks once for permission to read the clipboard; nothing is read while the tab is in the background, and nothing leaves your device.
Q27: How many clips are kept?
A27: The newest 100, 300 or 1,000 clips that are not pinned (300 unless you change it in Settings), within about 1,000,000 characters for all clips together and 200 pictures. A clip holds up to 100,000 characters; pictures of up to 20 MB and 50 megapixels are kept as PNG in this browser.
Q28: Why are only some of my links opened?
A28: Browsers let a page open one new tab per click unless pop-ups are allowed for it. Allow pop-ups for this page from the icon at the right end of the address bar, choose to open 5, 10 or 20 per click, or use Open next, which opens one link per click and always works. Opening more than 25 tabs at once asks first.
Q29: What does Remove tracking tags remove?
A29: Address parts added to follow clicks, such as utm_source, fbclid, gclid and about forty others. The page the link points to stays the same. Remove repeats also treats links as the same when they differ only in https, www, a slash at the end or those tags.
6. Tables, CSV and Excel
Q30: What can I paste into Text to table?
A30: Rows from Excel or Google Sheets, a CSV or TSV file, a table from a web page, a Markdown table, JSON, or columns lined up with spaces. The separator is found for you. Click a cell to edit it, a column name to sort, and save the table as CSV, TSV, Markdown, JSON, HTML, SQL, LaTeX, a text box, an Excel file or a picture.
Q31: How does Table to CSV handle merged cells?
A31: A table copied from a web page, an email or a document comes with its merged cells, header rows and links. Merged cells are spread over the cells they cover (or left blank, if you prefer), header rows on top of each other are joined into one, and links can get columns of their own. Made for Excel adds a mark at the start of the file so Excel shows every letter correctly.
Q32: What does Stop formulas from running do?
A32: A cell that starts with =, +, - or @ could run as a formula when the CSV is opened in a spreadsheet. The option puts an apostrophe in front of such cells (numbers such as -5 are left alone), so they show as text.
Q33: What JSON can JSON to Excel read?
A33: Standard JSON, and also JSON with comments, trailing commas, single quotes or names without quotes, one record per line, or a JavaScript "const data =" in front; a mistake is shown with its line and column. Choose which list becomes the rows; nested objects become columns such as address.city, and lists inside each row can share a cell, get their own columns, go to their own sheets (up to 100) or stay as JSON.
Q34: What is in the Excel file?
A34: Real numbers, true and false, dates written as 2026-01-31 turned into Excel dates, clickable links, filter buttons on the header row and a header row that stays in view. Excel holds up to 1,048,576 rows, 16,384 columns and 32,767 characters per cell; anything beyond is cut, with a note.
Q35: Can it turn Excel or CSV back into JSON?
A35: Yes. Choose Excel to JSON, paste rows or open an .xlsx or CSV file (up to 25 MB). Dotted names such as address.city and tags.1 become nested objects and lists, and numbers and true or false become values, unless you untick those options.
7. Duplicate Files
Q36: How are duplicate files found?
A36: Every file in the folder and its sub-folders is listed. Files of the same size are compared, first by a fingerprint of their first and last 32 KB, then by a SHA-256 fingerprint of the whole file. Two files with the same size and the same whole-file fingerprint are exact copies, whatever their names.
Q37: What are copies by name?
A37: Files in the same folder whose names differ only by a copy mark, such as report (1).pdf, report - Copy.pdf, Copy of report.pdf, report copy 2.pdf or a sync service's conflicted copy, and whose content is not all the same. They are often an older or newer version, so none of them is ticked for you.
Q38: How does it find look-alike photos?
A38: Each photo (JPEG, PNG, WebP, GIF, BMP or AVIF) is shrunk to a few pixels and turned into a 64-bit picture fingerprint. Photos whose fingerprints differ in at most 8 of the 64 bits are grouped, so the same picture saved again, resized or lightly edited is found. Up to 20,000 photos are compared in one check; a photo larger than 100 megapixels is not opened.
Q39: Which file is kept in each group?
A39: By default the one with the original name (no copy mark), and among look-alike photos the largest picture. Keep lets you choose the oldest, the newest or the shortest path instead, and Keep this picks a file by hand. In groups of exact copies every other file is ticked; in the other groups nothing is ticked until you choose.
Q40: Will it delete my files?
A40: Nothing changes until you choose. Move to a Duplicates folder puts the ticked files into a folder named _Duplicates inside the folder you checked, keeping their sub-folders, so you can look through them before deleting anything yourself. Delete removes the ticked files for good, not to the Recycle Bin or the Trash, and asks first; it also warns when every copy in a group is ticked.
Q41: Why can I not move or delete in my browser?
A41: Changing files in a folder from a web page needs the browser's folder access, which Chrome and Edge offer on computers when the folder was opened with Choose a folder. Other browsers, phones and folders dropped on the page can be read but not changed, so the Script button saves a small file that does the moving or deleting when you run it.
Q42: Are the scripts safe to run?
A42: Each script lists every file it will move or delete, says when files are deleted for good, 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 skips files that are gone. A Windows script leaves out any name with characters Windows does not allow.
Q43: What does A list of names do?
A43: Paste file names or full paths, one per line, or take them from a folder, and choose which copy marks to remove. The tool shows each clean name and can copy the list, save it as a text file or make a rename script. When the clean name is already taken in the same folder, the copy keeps its name or is left out, as you choose.
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