Roue

New Free file converter for the Linux desktop

Drop a file.
Get the file you wanted.

Press Super Shift D, drop a file on a slice of the wheel, done. Roue turns HEIC into JPG, screen recordings into tiny MP4s, videos into GIFs and documents into PDFs, right next to the original. No dialogs, no uploads.

Download for Ubuntu & Debian Read the tutorial
wget -qO- https://guilyx.github.io/roue/install.sh | sh

Ubuntu 22.04+ and Debian 12+. Updates arrive through Software Updater. Other distributions: install from source with pipx. Version 0.3.0 · GPL-3.0-or-later.

See it in action

About 50 seconds, four conversions

A phone photo to JPG with the hotkey's wheel, a screen recording under 10 MB from the Files menu, a WebP with Shift-drag, and a GIF from the terminal. Recorded live, nothing staged.

Roue 0.1 on GNOME Files (X11). Every result in the video is a real conversion.

How it works

One engine, three ways in

Use whichever is closest. They share the same presets, the same history and the same rule: results land next to the original.

The wheel

In Files, Ctrl Shift right-click a file, or select files and press the hotkey: the wheel opens at the pointer. It only shows presets that fit, and More… opens every preset. On X11, hold Shift while dragging and it opens around the pointer.

Right-click in Files

Select one photo or forty, right-click, Convert with Roue…. The wheel opens right at the pointer, with the presets that fit everything you selected. One notification at the end.

The command line

Every preset is a command: roue jpg *.HEIC. Folders, parallel jobs, JSON output and clear exit codes, for scripts and power users.

Made for the everyday

The conversions you keep searching for

No more "convert mov to mp4 linux" at 11 pm. Each one is a single drop.

HEICJPG

Photos from your iPhone

HEIC files nothing else opens become JPGs that open everywhere.

Preset: JPG

MOV · 300 MBMP4 · 9.6 MB

Too big for chat

A two-pass encode that lands under 10 MB, sized from the video's length.

Preset: Under 10 MB

JPG + GPSJPG, clean

Post without your location

Drops GPS, camera and date details before you share a photo.

Preset: Remove metadata

MP4GIF

A GIF for your README

15 fps, palette-optimised, loops forever. Looks good, stays small.

Preset: GIF

PDF · 40 MBPDF · 6 MB

A scan too big to email

Ghostscript shrinks image-heavy PDFs. Kept only if it's actually smaller.

Preset: Compress PDF

VideoMP3

Just the audio

Pull the soundtrack out of a talk or a clip, or turn a recording into a tiny Opus voice note.

Preset: MP3

Built in

Ready-made presets, sensible defaults

Each preset does one thing well. Turn off the ones you never use, tweak the rest, or write your own.

Images

  • JPG.jpg
  • PNG.png
  • WebP.webp
  • AVIF.avif
  • Half sizesame
  • 1080 px widesame
  • Double size.png
  • Compress.jpg
  • Remove metadatasame

Video

  • MP4.mp4
  • GIF.gif
  • WebM.webm
  • Under 10 MB.mp4
  • Under 25 MB.mp4
  • Smaller video.mp4
  • Mutesame

Audio

  • MP3.mp3
  • Opus.opus
  • WAV.wav
  • FLAC.flac
  • Even out volumesame

Documents

  • PDF.pdf
  • Word.docx
  • Web page.html
  • Compress PDF.pdf
  • Pages to PNGpages · .png
  • Text.txt

See every preset and what it takes

Tutorial

Your first conversion in a minute

  1. Install

    On Ubuntu or Debian, run this in a terminal. It asks for your password, installs Roue and sets up the hotkey and the Files menu:

    wget -qO- https://guilyx.github.io/roue/install.sh | sh

    Prefer the .deb? Get it from Releases; the first launch walks you through setup.

  2. Open the wheel

    In Files, hold Ctrl Shift and right-click a file. Or select files and press Super Shift D (Super is the Windows key). Each slice is a format that file can become.

  3. Click a slice

    Pick a slice. Away from Files, the hotkey opens an empty ring instead: drop files on it, or click it to choose them.

  4. Find it next to the original

    IMG_2041.HEIC gives IMG_2041.jpg, and a notification says when it's ready. Changed your mind? roue undo moves it to the trash.

Read the full tutorial

Screenshots

At home on GNOME

Built with GTK 4 and libadwaita. Follows your light or dark style.

The Roue wheel open over GNOME Files after right-clicking a screen recording: slices for MP4, GIF, WebM, Under 10 MB, Under 25 MB, Smaller video, Mute and More…. The pointer is on Under 10 MB, which turns red while the centre explains what it does.
The wheel, opened from Files on a screen recording
The Roue full panel: a search box, then tiles grouped into Images, Video, Audio and Documents, each with a coloured icon, a name and the output format.
The full panel, behind More…
Roue preferences: keyboard shortcut, Shift-drag, staying in the background, where to save results, notifications and parallel conversions.
Preferences

Make it yours

Presets are just YAML

Drop a file in ~/.config/roue/presets/ and a new preset joins the wheel, the panel and the command line. Use the built-in image, video, document and PDF backends, or wrap any tool with {in} and {out}.

  • Override a built-in preset by reusing its id
  • Mistakes are explained in plain words, never fatal
  • Share them as a file, or send a pull request

Write your first preset →

# ~/.config/roue/presets/thumbnail.yaml
id: thumbnail
name: Thumbnail
description: 320 px wide WebP, for blog posts.
group: image
accepts: ["image/*"]
output_ext: webp
suffix: " (thumb)"
backend: image
params:
  width: 320
  quality: 80

Wayland & X11

Works the right way on both

Wayland keeps each app's drags private, by design. Roue respects that instead of fighting it, and gives X11 a little extra magic.

Wayland Ubuntu's default

  • Ctrl Shift right-click files in Files: the wheel opens at the pointer
  • Super Shift D opens the wheel for the files selected in Files
  • Drag files onto the wheel
  • Right-click Convert with Roue… in Files: the wheel opens at the pointer

X11

  • Everything Wayland gets, plus:
  • Shift-drag: hold Shift while dragging any file and the wheel springs open around the pointer. Release Shift, drop on a slice.
  • The hotkey's wheel opens centred on the pointer and stays on top

Your files never leave your computer

Roue runs FFmpeg, libvips, Ghostscript, Pandoc and LibreOffice on your machine. It doesn't open a single network connection: no uploads, no accounts, no analytics. Turn the Wi-Fi off and it works exactly the same.

Read the privacy page

FAQ

Questions, answered

Where do converted files go?

Next to the original, with the same name and the new extension: IMG_2041.HEIC gives IMG_2041.jpg. You can pick a single output folder in Preferences instead. If the original's folder is read-only, results go to Downloads.

Can it overwrite my files?

No. If photo.jpg exists, you get photo (2).jpg. Results are written to a hidden temporary folder first and moved into place in a way that refuses to replace anything. Undo moves results to the trash; nothing is ever deleted.

Which distributions and desktops does it support?

Any Linux with Python 3.10+ and GTK 4.6+ with libadwaita 1.1+: Ubuntu 22.04, Debian 12, Fedora 40 and newer. The hotkey is set up automatically on GNOME; on KDE, Xfce and others you add it in your keyboard settings in a few clicks.

Why can't I Shift-drag on Wayland?

Wayland doesn't let one app see another app's drags. That's a privacy feature, not a bug. On Wayland, use Ctrl Shift right-click in Files, the Files menu or the hotkey.

My HEIC photos won't convert.

Your libheif needs its HEVC decoder: sudo apt install libheif-plugin-libde265. Run roue doctor to check every tool at once.

Is it really free?

Yes. Roue is free software under the GPL-3.0-or-later license. No paid tier, no ads, no tracking.

More questions in the docs →

Give your files a spin

Free, local, and one keystroke away.

Download Roue Star on GitHub