10 Free Tools Every Designer Should Have Bookmarked
Design work isn't just the creative parts in Figma or Photoshop — it's also a dozen small technical chores: shrinking an image to fit a hosting limit, cutting the background out of a reference photo, slapping a watermark on a portfolio piece. Keeping a set of fast, free tools handy for jobs like these saves more time than it seems. Here are ten worth bookmarking.
None of the tools below require sign-up or installation — all of them run right in your browser, and several process files entirely locally, with nothing sent to a server. The list is deliberately capped at ten so it's actually memorable enough to keep handy, instead of getting lost among a hundred other bookmarks.
1. Compress Image
Before uploading a mockup to a site or sending it to a client, it's worth shrinking the preview: both websites and email hate heavy files. Compress Image — the quality slider finds a balance between size and detail in seconds, no Photoshop required, and support for JPG, PNG, WebP, and AVIF in and out covers nearly any format a designer works with.
2. Remove Background
Remove Background — a neural network cuts the subject out of a photo without manual outlining, handy for quick mockups, product cards, or reference images where a jewel-precise mask isn't the point. The result saves as a PNG with a transparent background, ready to drop onto any other layer in a mockup.
3. Upscale Image
When a client sends over a low-res logo that needs to go on a large banner, Upscale Image with a neural network works far better than stretching it in an editor — instead of blurry pixels, the algorithm reconstructs plausible detail. The difference is especially noticeable at 3x-4x enlargement.
4. Watermark
Before publishing work in a public portfolio, it's worth marking your authorship — Watermark applies one in a couple of clicks, with adjustable opacity, text size, and position. It won't stop copying entirely, but it noticeably reduces the temptation to pass someone else's work off as original.
5. QR Code Generator
For print work — business cards, posters, packaging — QR Code Generator turns a URL or contact info into a code that downloads straight as an image ready for print. It also works well for interactive presentation slides — a code linking straight to a live portfolio.
6. AVIF Converter
If you're handing off finished web assets, exporting through the AVIF Converter instead of JPG immediately gives the client lighter files with no visible quality loss — which means a faster site, something the designer ends up getting credit for too, not just the developer.
7. Crop Image
Crop Image — quickly trim a reference image or screenshot to the frame you need, without opening a full image editor for a single operation. Crop coordinates are entered in pixels manually, so the result comes out precise on the first try.
8. Resize Image
Exact pixel dimensions for a specific platform's requirements — avatars, banners, marketplace listing photos — Resize Image sets them by hand, no eyeballing it. Especially useful for social platforms, where every network has its own strict cover and preview aspect ratios.
9. Base64
Base64 is handy when you're building a landing page and want to embed a tiny icon directly in your CSS without an extra server request — sometimes noticeably speeding up a page with dozens of small decorative elements.
10. Password Generator
For new accounts on work tools — Figma, Dribbble, cloud storage — the Password Generator is faster than making up a strong, unique password yourself. Nothing is stored anywhere — the password is shown once in your browser, so copy it straight into a password manager.
11. PDF to Word
If a client sends a brief or spec as a PDF and you need to quote a chunk of text or make quick edits, PDF to Word beats retyping it by hand. It's one of the few tools on the site where the file briefly goes to a server for layout recognition — see the Privacy Policy for details.
12. Table Converter
Table Converter is handy when a quote or brief arrives as an Excel file and a prototype needs the data as JSON — or the other way around, turning an export from an internal system into a clean table for a client presentation.
13. My IP
Sometimes it's useful to quickly check your current public IP address — say, when setting up access to a staging server to show a client or developer a mockup. My IP shows the address and an approximate location without any extra steps.
All thirteen tools are free, require no sign-up, and run right in your browser — most process files entirely locally, without sending anything to a server (see the Privacy Policy for which tools do use a server, and why). Design work isn't limited to visual tasks, and keeping a couple of utility tools handy at the edge of development — from table conversion to checking an IP address — turns out to be surprisingly useful. Bookmark the page — you'll reach for it more often than you'd think, especially with thirty minutes left before a deadline and nothing on hand but a browser.