Understanding file size limits in your browser
Why very large files can be slow or crash a tab, and rough safe limits per tool category.
Because all processing happens in your browser, the limiting factor is your device's RAM — not a server. When you upload a file, it gets loaded into your browser tab's memory. Large files can slow things down or, in extreme cases, crash the tab.
There are no enforced file size limits on ToolBrigade. But here are practical guidelines based on how each tool category works:
Image tools
Images up to ~20 megapixels (e.g. 5000×4000px) work fine on most devices. Very large images — 50MP+ from high-end cameras — may be slow to draw onto the Canvas. The file size in MB matters less than the pixel dimensions, since the Canvas works with uncompressed pixel data. A 20MB JPEG might be 50MP uncompressed, which is much larger in memory than the file size suggests.
PDF tools
PDFs up to ~50MB work well. Very large PDFs (100MB+) may be slow to load with pdf-lib, especially if they contain many high-resolution embedded images. PDF.js (used for PDF to Image and PDF to Text) renders pages sequentially, so large multi-page PDFs take longer but are less likely to crash.
Text tools
Text tools handle very large inputs well — hundreds of thousands of words or lines. The Text Diff tool has O(m×n) complexity, so comparing two very long texts (10,000+ lines each) may be slow.
If a tool is slow or unresponsive with a large file: close other browser tabs to free up RAM, try a desktop browser instead of mobile, or split the file into smaller parts before processing.