About Refract
Tools that respect your time and your files.
Refract is a free collection of CSS, colour, image and SEO tools for people who build websites. It is built by one web developer in the UK, and it runs entirely in your browser.
Why Refract exists
Refract started with a daily limit. I relied on an online site-audit tool for client work, and every day I hit the cap on how many times I could use it. Looking for alternatives turned up the same pattern everywhere: tools that wanted an account before they would do anything, buried the useful part under pop-ups, or asked me to upload client images to a server I knew nothing about.
None of that is necessary. A gradient generator doesn’t need your email address. Resizing a folder of product photos doesn’t need a server, because the browser you are reading this in can already do it. So I started building the tools I wanted to use myself: fast, free, unlimited and private by design.
Every tool on Refract is one I use in my own work, built to the standard I would want if I were handing the code to a client.
A gradient generator doesn’t need your email address.
What Refract promises
These hold however the site grows.
- 01
Your files stay on your device
Images, SVGs and anything else you add are processed by your own browser. They are never uploaded to Refract or anyone else.
- 02
Free, with no limits
No accounts, no daily caps and no “upgrade to export”. Use any tool as often as you like.
- 03
Nothing in the way
No pop-ups, no autoplay and nothing covering the workspace or interrupting a download.
- 04
Code you can ship
Generated CSS uses modern, well-supported properties, with prefixes only where browsers still need them.
How your privacy is protected
Most online image tools upload your file, process it on their server and send it back. Refract skips the upload entirely.
Because nothing is uploaded, there is nothing for us to store, leak or look at. You can check this yourself: open your browser’s developer tools, choose the Network tab and use any image tool. Your file is never sent anywhere.
Analytics is the only optional extra, and it only loads if you accept cookies. Read the privacy page for the details.
- 1
You add a file
It is read by your browser, on your device.
- 2
Your browser does the work
Resizing, converting and optimising use the browser’s own image engine.
- 3
You download the result
Straight from your browser to your device. Nothing passes through our server.
What’s the catch?
There isn’t one.
Refract costs money to run: hosting, a domain and a lot of evenings. Right now it is paid for by people who buy a coffee, and every one goes straight back into new tools.
In future there may be a single, quiet ad on some pages, or optional paid features that genuinely need a server, such as full-site audits. If that happens, the promises above still stand: the tools stay free, your files stay on your device, and nothing gets in the way of the work.
What’s next
A new tool every week or two.
Right now I’m building Image to Base64 and CSV ↔ JSON converter. The bigger plan is Refract Kit: one place to build a palette, type scale, spacing and shadows together, then export them as design tokens.
The roadmap shows everything that has shipped, what’s being built and the ideas being explored.
Built by a web developer in the UK
Refract is a one-person project. If something is broken, unclear or missing, I’d genuinely like to hear about it at hello@refracttools.com.