v0.2.0 · Shift-drag on Windows, macOS & X11

Your files,
one flick away.

Shift-drag a file anywhere on your desktop. Orbit blooms under the cursor, you pick a format, and the result lands beside the original — local, atomic, and never uploaded.

Download for Windows .exe installer · 2.3 MB · Windows 10/11 macOS & Linux packages & terminal commands

No administrator prompt · Prefer an .msi?

PDF → PNG HEIC → JPG MOV → MP4 WAV → MP3 DOCX → PDF SVG → WebP MP4 → GIF PNG → AVIF EPUB → TXT JPG → PDF

Three moves

Less app. More muscle memory.

No import dialog, no project file, no window to find. The ring appears where your work already is, then gets out of the way.

01

Shift-drag a file

Anywhere on the desktop, from Explorer or Finder, or straight from the tray. The ring opens under the pointer without interrupting the drag.

02

Aim at a petal

Only what your file can actually become. Drop to run with defaults, or hold Alt for quality, dimensions, page ranges and frame steps.

03

It lands beside it

name (converted).ext, written atomically. Existing files are never overwritten — the next one becomes (converted 2).

Under the glass

Everything local. Everything quick.

The parts you want from a power tool, without the power-tool interface. No account, no queue, no “upgrade to export”.

841 format pairs

63 formats and 162 extensions, from HEIC to JPG and MOV to MP4. Resolved from a data-driven registry — not a hardcoded menu.

Presets & chains

Bundle resize → convert → strip metadata into a single pick. Chains run in order; intermediates stay hidden and are cleaned up.

Watch folders

Point Orbit at a folder and choose one rule. New files are converted once they have settled — including files synced by another app.

Series output

PDF pages and video frames become numbered runs: scan (page 001).png, clip (frame 001).png. No collisions.

Local history

Every published file is an append-only log on your machine. Reveal the folder or clear the log from settings. Nothing leaves the device.

Headless CLI

orbit convert --to webp photo.png. Same registry, same defaults, same engines — for scripts, cron jobs and CI.

Download

Get Orbit.

The Windows installer is a direct download. macOS and Linux are one command away if you would rather stay in the terminal.

Windows

10 / 11 · x64 · per-user install

Recommended

Download the installer and run it. No administrator prompt, no reboot. WebView2 — the renderer Windows may be missing — is fetched automatically if needed.

Not code-signed yet, so SmartScreen may ask: More info → Run anyway. The source and CI-built installers are public.

Download .exe 2.3 MB · NSIS installer .msi for managed PCs

Windows 10 or 11 · 64-bit

macOS

12+ · Apple silicon or Intel

Orbit_0.2.0_aarch64.dmg 2.9 MB 
base=https://github.com/devsurx/Orbit/releases/download/v0.2.0
curl -L -o ~/Downloads/Orbit.dmg "$base/Orbit_0.2.0_aarch64.dmg"
open ~/Downloads/Orbit.dmg
  • Open the disk image, drag Orbit to Applications.
  • Grant Accessibility permission for Shift-drag and the shortcut.
  • Not notarised yet: first launch may need Finder → Open.

Linux

x64 · AppImage, .deb or .rpm

Orbit_0.2.0_amd64.deb 3.2 MB 
base=https://github.com/devsurx/Orbit/releases/download/v0.2.0
curl -LO "$base/Orbit_0.2.0_amd64.deb"
sudo apt install ./Orbit_0.2.0_amd64.deb
  • Needs WebKitGTK 4.1, libxtst6 and libxi6.
  • Shift-drag is X11-only. On Wayland, use the tray or a compositor binding.
  • Works on GNOME, KDE, sway and Hyprland.

Every build lives on GitHub Releases · v0.2.0 · source under MPL-2.0.

Before you install

The short answers.

Do I need FFmpeg or ImageMagick?

No. Orbit uses the engines already on your machine and falls back to a built-in image engine that needs nothing at all. Installing FFmpeg, ImageMagick 7, Ghostscript, Poppler, qpdf, LibreOffice or Tesseract unlocks more formats and better fidelity. The repository README lists what each engine unlocks.

Does it upload or phone home?

No. There is no account, no telemetry, and the app makes no network calls. Conversions never leave the machine. The only download anywhere is the Windows installer’s WebView2 bootstrap, and only if Windows does not already have it.

Why does Windows show a warning?

The installer is not code-signed yet. Choose More info → Run anyway, or use the .msi. The installer and the app are built by the public GitHub Actions workflow from the same source in this repository.

What about Wayland?

The app runs, but global Shift-drag and the in-app hotkey are X11-only — Wayland gives input to the compositor. Use the tray, Open with Orbit, or bind orbit-app in Hyprland, sway, GNOME or KDE.

Where is the CLI?

The installers carry the GUI. orbit-cli and the orbit launcher are repository tools: build once with cargo build --release -p orbit-cli. They share the registry, defaults and engines with the ring.