What PreviewAny does

It started as a way to open the files your apps refuse. It now does three things, and all of them happen inside your browser, on your own device.

See a file

Drop a file in and it appears. No account, no install, and no waiting for an upload, because there is no upload.

• Markdown becomes a clean document, with working diagrams and highlighted code.
• Spreadsheets and CSV become a real table. You can filter rows in both, sort columns in a CSV, and correct cells directly in a spreadsheet.
• JSX and TSX actually run, so you see the component rather than the code, as long as the file only uses React. One that pulls in other packages is shown as code, with an explanation.
• Word documents open and read normally, without Word.
• Images, SVG, JSON and code in about twenty programming languages all render too.

Fifty-eight file extensions in total, and fifty-six of them are drawn on screen. The other two are .doc and .pdf, both explained further down.

Get a file ready to send

When you are looking at a Markdown file, Save as turns it into a real .docx or .pdf. Not a screenshot and not a print: an actual document, with headings, tables and web links that still work when it arrives.

Your own browser builds it, so the file you started with never travels anywhere.

Find out what a file is carrying

Most files carry more than they show. What's inside reads the parts you never see, and says so in plain language.

• Photos often hold the exact coordinates of where they were taken, the camera model and its serial number, and the date and time of the shot.
• Word documents carry the author, the company, whoever saved it last, how long it was worked on, and often comments and tracked changes still sitting in the file.
• PDFs can keep earlier saved versions inside the same file, so text removed in a later edit may still be in there. We tell you how many a particular file is carrying.

We never look any of it up. Coordinates are shown as numbers and left at that, because asking a map service where you were would tell a stranger exactly that.

Then it offers to fix it. Save a clean copy hands back the same photo or document with the hidden details taken out. The picture is not re-encoded, so it is pixel for pixel what you dropped in, and the document still opens in Word with its text, tables and formatting untouched. Only what was hidden goes.

Two honest limits. A file embedded inside a Word document, and comments on spreadsheet cells, stay put, and we say so at the time rather than letting you assume otherwise. And a PDF cannot be cleaned this way at all: doing it safely means rewriting the file, which needs the full PDF reader we deliberately do not load. For a PDF, export a fresh one from whatever made it.

What it does not do

• It does not draw PDFs. Your phone and laptop already open those perfectly well. We show you what a PDF is carrying instead, which is the part nothing else tells you.
• It cannot open the old .doc format. There is no maintained way to read it in a browser, so we say so and point you at a free way around it, rather than quietly sending your file to a server.
• A Word preview keeps the structure, not the exact look. Headings, bold, lists and tables come through. Fonts, page breaks and precise spacing do not.
• Your file is never saved. There are no accounts, and nothing you open is stored anywhere. Close the tab and it is gone. The only things kept on your device are your own settings: language, dark mode and contrast.

Why your file is never uploaded

Your file is read by your own browser and never sent anywhere. That is the part that matters and the part we will not compromise on.

Being precise about the rest, because a privacy claim is worth nothing if it is not exact. To draw Markdown, code and React components the page loads a few well known open source libraries from public code networks. Those networks can see that someone opened a file of that kind. They never see the file or anything in it. Everything that reads a file's hidden details, so Word, Excel, PDF and photo metadata, is served from previewany.com itself, so no other company ever learns that you inspected one.

There is also one short anonymous count sent to our own server: once when a page loads, and again when a file is opened, so we can see which formats people actually need. It records the type of file, a rough size band, whether it displayed correctly, and which buttons get used. Never a name, never any contents, no account, no cookie. It is switched off completely if your browser sends Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control.

Open your browser's network tab and drop a file in. You will see those libraries load, and that one small count. You will not see your file, because it never goes anywhere. There is more detail in the privacy policy.

Try it

Go to the home page and drop something in. If you get stuck, the help pages cover the things people ask most.