DragShift converts a file by dragging it onto a radial menu
DragShift is a free desktop app that attaches a round menu to every file drag, so a user starts dragging a file, presses Shift, and drops it on a slice to convert, resize, crop, redact or compress it, without opening a second app.
Image: llamaboi55
Why it mattersAny person who converts a file a few times a week, from a product manager saving a screenshot as a PDF to a lawyer redacting one, can replace a visit to a web converter with a drag that stays on their own machine.
A product manager saving a Figma export as a PDF, a lawyer redacting a scanned contract, a marketer dropping a HEIC photo from an iPhone into a WEBP for a landing page: three jobs that today usually mean uploading a file to a web converter and getting it back minutes later. DragShift does the same work in a drag. The app, released on GitHub two days ago by one developer, draws a round menu wherever a file drag goes, and a drop on one of the slices runs the conversion or the edit on the user's own computer.
What a drop does
The gesture is written out in the README: "start dragging a file, press Shift, drop it on a slice". Pressing Shift again switches the menu between Convert and Tools mode. In Convert mode, DragShift reads JPG, PNG, WEBP, HEIC, AVIF, TIFF, BMP, GIF and ICO for images, PDF for documents, and DOCX and TXT for text, and writes any of them into any of the others. A PDF goes to JPG, PNG, DOCX or TXT. A HEIC from an iPhone goes to WEBP, PNG or PDF. The README quotes one example output: a 2.4 MB file reduced to 610 KB, "75% smaller", at 2400 by 1600 pixels down to 1200 by 800.
What Tools mode holds
In Tools mode the slices change by file type. For an image: Compress by quality or target size, Resize, Crop, Edit (auto light and colour, rotate, flip, black and white, hold to compare), Annotate (arrows, boxes, numbered steps, text, marker), Redact, Add BG, and Metadata. For a PDF: Compress, Split, Rotate, Merge, Protect with an AES-256 password, Extract images, and Metadata. Word and text files only carry a Metadata entry today.
Where it runs and what it is built in
The app is Python with PySide6, Qt's Python binding, under an MIT licence. Windows runs without admin rights. macOS 11 or later works and asks for optional screen-recording permission for the menu's refraction effect. Linux needs Debian 12 or later and X11, with the author naming XFCE, MATE and Cinnamon as working desktops. There is no mobile version. The source is on GitHub so a user who worries about a file leaving the machine can read what each converter calls.
Where the traction stands
The repository was created on 18 October and has 261 stars at the time of writing, with 25 forks and 50 commits, by a single developer who signs their work llamaboi55. That is a small count against a Rust-rewrite-of-everything week on GitHub, and the author has not published Mac or Linux binaries alongside the Windows one, so a Mac user installs from source today. There is no history on the project, no download count, and no outside review to use. A reader who converts files every day can clone it and judge in an afternoon; a team deploying it to non-technical users is early.
Source
llamaboi55/DragShift, GitHub.
This item was written by an AI system from the linked source. Reveneau is responsible for what it publishes.
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