Inside the Novitora Conversion Engine

What Happens When You Convert a File

When you drop a file on Novitora and download the result a few seconds later, it travels through several stages: an encrypted upload, a bot check, a queued job on our processing engine in Frankfurt, and a short-lived download link that stops working once your file is deleted — within 2 hours for anonymous conversions. This post walks through that path so you know exactly what happens to your file and when it goes away.

Stage One: Upload

Everything starts in your browser. You pick a file (or up to 10 for a batch) and it uploads over an encrypted TLS connection. There is no account step and no email wall in front of it.

Two limits apply at this point. Each file can be up to 100 MB, and a single batch holds up to 10 files. The size check runs in the browser before the upload begins, so an oversized file is rejected immediately instead of wasting a round trip. Anything within the limits moves on to the next stage.

Stage Two: The Bot Check

Before a file reaches the engine, an invisible bot check runs in the background. Most people never see it. It only asks for interaction if the request looks automated, which keeps the free tools available for real users without putting a puzzle in front of every conversion.

Stage Three: The Server-Side Proxy

Your browser never talks to the conversion engine directly. The request goes to a server-side proxy on Novitora that validates the requested operation, attaches the file, and forwards it to the engine. Keeping the engine behind a proxy means the browser only ever sees Novitora, and the rules about what can be converted live in one place rather than being trusted from the client.

Stage Four: Processing in the Queue

The engine runs in the European Union, in Frankfurt. Incoming jobs join a queue and are processed in turn, which is what lets the service stay responsive when many people convert at once instead of trying to run everything at the same instant.

Each job is a single transformation: a PNG becomes a JPG, a PDF is run through OCR, a batch of images is bundled into one archive. The engine picks the right tool for the pair you asked for, does the work, and writes the output.

Stage Five: Download, Then Deletion

When the job finishes, the proxy hands your browser a link to the converted file. That link is signed and time limited: it stops working as soon as the file behind it is deleted.

The file itself is on a short clock. For anonymous conversions, converted files and their sources are removed within 2 hours of upload; authenticated API workspaces keep files for 24 hours. There is no long-term storage to opt out of, because there is no long-term storage. If you need the result, download it during your session and keep your own copy.

Why It Is Built This Way

Three constraints shaped the design:

• No accounts, so no data to protect long term. The 2-hour window means files do not accumulate.
• EU processing. Conversions run in Frankfurt rather than being scattered across regions.
• Encrypted in transit. Uploads and downloads use TLS.

Novitora is early, and there is more on the roadmap, including a public API for teams that want to convert files programmatically. For now the engine powers the free web tools, from the image converter to OCR for PDFs and text to speech. Everything above happens every time you use one of them.