Bonefolder help

Getting started

How do I install Bonefolder?

Open Bonefolder's page on the Chrome Web Store, click Add to Chrome, then Add extension. Bonefolder opens a short welcome page. To keep its icon in view, click the Extensions icon (the puzzle piece) in Chrome's toolbar, then the pin next to Bonefolder. Bonefolder asks for no access to the websites you visit.

How do I open Bonefolder?

Click the Bonefolder icon in Chrome's toolbar: Bonefolder opens in its own tab (or switches to the tab that is already open — see Settings → Toolbar icon). Drop PDFs or images anywhere in the tab, or click Choose files. Every page appears as a thumbnail; photos become one page each.

Which files can I add?

PDF, JPEG, PNG, WebP, GIF (first frame), BMP and AVIF. Bonefolder checks what a file really is from its content, not its name.

How do I merge files?

Add them, arrange the pages, then click Save as PDF. The result is saved to your Downloads folder, named after the first file (for example contract-merged.pdf; Settings → File names offers "Bonefolder and the date" instead). After the save, the report at the top of the side pane shows what happened (see below).

Organising pages

Drag a page to its new place, or select pages and use the toolbar: rotate left/right, move left/right, duplicate, insert a blank page, delete. Every change can be undone (Undo, Ctrl+Z / ⌘+Z; 50 steps).

Selecting:

click a page, Shift+click to select everything in between, Ctrl+click (⌘+click on Mac) to add or remove one page. Ctrl+A selects all, Esc clears the selection.

Keyboard shortcuts

(click a page first; press ? to see them in the app):

Splitting and extracting

Extract pages:

select pages, then click Extract N pages (or press Ctrl+E): they are saved as one file, in their current order.

Split…

offers three ways:

• Page ranges — 1-3, 5, 8- gives three files: pages 1 to 3, page 5, and page 8 to the end. -4 means pages 1 to 4.

• Every N pages — for example every 2 pages.

• Selected pages — the selection as one file. The dialog shows the names of the files you will get. Page numbers refer to the current arrangement (the numbers under the thumbnails). Chrome may ask once whether Bonefolder may download several files: allow it.

Photos to PDF

Add photos like any file. Each photo becomes one page, turned the right way up using the orientation the camera recorded. Camera data and location are always removed: the camera model, date taken and GPS position stay in your original photo but never reach the PDF. (JPEG photos keep their image data byte for byte, without those blocks; other formats are decoded and re-encoded by Chrome, which copies no metadata.)

Photo pages

(under When saving, shown when the job has photos): page size Fit photo (the page takes the photo's shape), A4 or Letter (portrait or landscape like the photo), and margins None, Small or Large. The default follows your region (Letter in the US and Canada, A4 elsewhere) and can be changed in Settings.

My iPhone photo was refused ("HEIC").

Chrome cannot decode HEIC photos. On the iPhone, choose Settings → Camera → Formats → Most Compatible, or export the photo as JPEG, then add it again.

Save as images

Save as images…

turns pages into image files, exactly as they would be saved as a PDF (page numbers, watermark and redaction included). Choose the pages (all or selected), JPEG or PNG, the resolution (72 dpi for screens, 150 dpi, 300 dpi for print), and where: A ZIP file or A folder… (Chrome asks you to pick a folder; one file per page is written there). One page gives a single image file. A progress bar shows "Image 12 of 40"; Cancel stops and saves nothing. Very large exports (over about 1.5 GB) must go to a folder.

Options applied when saving (When saving)

Each row shows its current value; click it to change it. The pages in the grid are never changed by these options.

Page numbers & Bates:

choose a format ("Page 3 of 12"…), skip the cover if you like, the position and size. Page numbers restart in each split file. (Bates numbering is part of Pro.)

Watermark:

a line of text (Latin letters, digits and common punctuation), its position (diagonal, center, top, bottom), size, opacity and color, with a preview. A watermark is a visible mark, not a protection: someone with a PDF editor can remove it. (An image or logo watermark is part of Pro.)

Reduce size (Recommended):

photos and scans are re-encoded at about 170 dpi on a full page (JPEG quality 75), identical images are kept once, and the file structure is packed. Text and drawings stay sharp. The dialog first estimates how much can shrink. Bonefolder never saves a bigger file: if the result is not smaller, nothing is saved and the report says so. Files made of text and drawings usually change little.

Hidden data:

see what your files carry besides their pages, then choose Keep or Remove. Remove takes out document properties (title, author…) and XMP metadata, page metadata, comment authors and dates, scripts, attached files, and camera data inside images. Tick Also remove comments to drop sticky notes, highlights, drawings and stamps too (links and form fields stay). Bonefolder removes the hidden data it can detect; the text and images visible on the pages are not changed. Click ⓘ next to a file to see everything it holds (the inspector).

The report after each save

After every save (PDF, split, extract, images), a report shows the size before (the files the pages came from) and after, then what was Kept, Not kept, Removed, Added, and the Size and Security changes.

Why "Not kept"?

Bonefolder saves a new file built from your pages. Some parts of the original files cannot be carried into it: bookmarks, form fields (the fields are no longer fillable), accessibility tags, attached files, digital signatures (a signature is no longer valid after any change), layers (hidden layers become visible), page labels, scripts, and document properties. When a save would lose bookmarks, form fields, tags, attached files, signatures or layers, Bonefolder lists them before saving; choose Save anyway or Cancel. Your original files are never changed.

Protected files

A file asks for a password.

Type the password that opens it and click Open (Bonefolder checks it first; a wrong password shows an error, passwords are case-sensitive). Skip this file leaves it out. The saved copy is a new, unencrypted document, and the report says "opened with your password, saved without encryption".

Why does Bonefolder ask for the owner password?

Some files open without a password but their author withheld rights (printing, changes, copying…). Removing those restrictions without the author's permission is not allowed, so Bonefolder works on such files only with the owner password (also called the permissions password). The same applies when the password you know only gives restricted access.

A file is refused as "a protection Bonefolder can't open".

Certificate-based protection and unknown security methods are not supported.

Is my password kept?

No. It is used in the tab to open that file, then forgotten: never stored, logged, sent or put in a preset.

Save as… and where files go

By default, files go to Chrome's Downloads folder. ⋯ → Save as… opens Chrome's save window so you choose the name and place. Settings → Ask where to save each file makes every save ask (a folder window for several files). If you close Chrome's window, nothing is saved. The Saved in this session list lets you download a result again until you start a new job (results over 100 MB are not kept).

Free and Pro

Free

does every everyday tool on one document at a time, up to 100 MB per job, with no file limit, no daily limit and no watermark on your files: organise, merge, split and extract, photos to PDF, save as images, reduce size (Recommended), page numbers, text watermark, hidden data, open protected PDFs with your password, Save as…. Free tools are never moved to Pro.

Bonefolder Pro

($29 paid once, or $4.99 a month as a monthly subscription you can cancel anytime; prices include any VAT or sales tax) adds:

• Each file separately: the same save, split or image export applied to each original file (one PDF per file; one folder per file in the images ZIP). Page numbers restart in each file; Bates numbers continue.

• Jobs over 100 MB, up to what your computer can hold (see "Large files").

• True redaction: select one page → Redact page N → drag boxes over what must disappear (or Add box, then arrows to move, Shift+arrows to resize) → choose the image quality → Redact. When you save, the page becomes an image with the black boxes burned in. This is irreversible: the hidden text is gone for good and the page can no longer be searched or copied from. Check the result before sending it.

• Bates numbering: prefix, first number, digits, suffix, position and size; numbers follow the page order of the whole job, so split parts continue the sequence.

• Custom size reduction: resolution, quality, grayscale, and an optional target size (Bonefolder tries stronger settings until the file fits, and says so if it cannot — it then saves the smallest result).

• Image or logo watermark (PNG or JPEG, kept in the tab only).

• Presets: save the numbering, watermark text, size and hidden-data settings under a name and apply them in one click; the built-in Share-safe preset removes hidden data and comments and uses Recommended size. Presets never store documents, images or passwords; delete them in Settings → Presets.

How does the monthly subscription work, and how do I cancel it?

Bonefolder Pro is also sold as a monthly subscription: $4.99 a month, including any VAT or sales tax, with no commitment and no free trial. It renews every month until you cancel it. To cancel, open Settings → License → Manage billing (the Lemon Squeezy customer portal; the same link is in your receipt e-mail and on the Support page of our website, and it stays there even when Pro is not active in this browser) and cancel the subscription there; the portal also changes your payment method and has your invoices. Pro stays on until the end of the month you already paid for; after that, Bonefolder works as its free version, and you can buy Pro again at any time. Removing the extension does not cancel the subscription. Monthly payments are not refunded (except when an update removes a Pro feature: see section 6 of the terms of sale), but the 14-day money-back guarantee covers your first purchase of Bonefolder Pro, one-time or monthly. The one-time purchase costs the same as about six months of the subscription.

How do I activate Pro?

After purchase you receive a license key by email. Open Settings (gear icon) → License, paste the key, click Activate. To move Pro to another browser: Settings → License → Remove license from this browser, then activate it on the other one. A license works on up to 3 Chrome installations at the same time (each Chrome profile where the key is active counts as one). Pro checks your license about once a day when you are online and keeps working offline for up to 30 days after the last successful check; after that, Pro features pause until the next successful check.

Large files and memory

Bonefolder works in your computer's memory. It needs roughly 90 MB plus 6 times the size of the files in the job. When a job may need more than about 1.5 GB, Bonefolder warns you: close other tabs, or work in smaller batches (a crash of the tab would lose the unsaved job). A single file over 1.5 GB, or a result over 1.5 GB, cannot be handled in a browser tab: split the work into parts.

Why was my file refused?

• "is not a PDF or an image Bonefolder can open" — the content is not a supported format, whatever its name.

• "is a HEIC photo" — see "Photos to PDF".

• "is damaged or uses a structure Bonefolder can't read" — the file is incomplete or corrupted. Try downloading it again.

• "is damaged: Bonefolder recovered N pages" — Bonefolder opened what it could; check the pages before saving.

• "has no pages" — the file contains no page.

What Bonefolder does not do

No text recognition (OCR), no conversion to Word or other office formats, no editing of the text on a page, no legally qualified electronic signatures. Page numbers and text watermarks use the standard PDF font: Latin letters, digits and common punctuation only.

Privacy and offline use

Are my files uploaded or stored?

No. Bonefolder reads your files in its own tab, processes them in memory and never sends them anywhere. Documents, images and passwords are never stored: they disappear when you click New job or close the tab. Only your settings and presets are saved on this device. Bonefolder has no access to the websites you visit. The only network requests are license checks (license key and a random installation id) if you use Bonefolder Pro.

Does Bonefolder work offline?

Yes, for everything. Pro checks your license about once a day when you are online and keeps working offline for up to 30 days after the last successful check; after that, Pro features pause until the next successful check. The free tools keep working.

Uninstalling Bonefolder

Before you uninstall, free your license.

If you use Bonefolder Pro, open Settings → License → Remove license from this browser: this frees one of your 3 installations, so you can activate the key elsewhere. Uninstalling does not free it by itself. If Bonefolder is already uninstalled, write to support with your license key and we will free that installation.

How do I uninstall?

Right-click the Bonefolder icon → Remove from Chrome (or go to chrome://extensions → Bonefolder → Remove). Chrome then erases everything Bonefolder stored on this device: your settings and presets. Documents, images and passwords were never stored, so nothing else is left. Chrome may open a short goodbye page on our website; it receives no information about you or your files. To clear Bonefolder's data without uninstalling, use Settings → Privacy → Reset all data (it also removes the license from this browser).