Pomelo Help

The gesture

Select files in File Explorer or on the desktop and drag them with the primary mouse button. While the button is down, tap Shift to open Convert, Ctrl to open Tools or Alt to open Actions. A round glass wheel appears under the pointer.

A tap is a press and release within 400 ms with no other key in between. A key held longer keeps Explorer's own behaviour: Shift moves the files, Ctrl copies them and Alt makes a shortcut. A key that is already down when the drag starts, for example Ctrl held since a multi-select, never opens the wheel. Release it and tap again.

With the wheel open, press another of the three keys, or rest the pointer on a tab in the key bar above the wheel for 350 ms, to switch tabs. Drop the files on a wedge to run it. A drop anywhere else on the wheel does nothing. To use Explorer's normal drop, drag off the wheel and drop on a folder. Esc cancels the whole drag.

The key bar above the wheel shows each tab with its key. The pill in the middle of the wheel names the wedge under the pointer. Moving from one wedge to another plays a short soft tick; Settings has a switch to turn sounds off. Settings also makes the wheel smaller or larger: Wheel size is Small, Medium (the default) or Large.

If you tap a key while drawing a selection box or moving a window by its title bar, the wheel may open, and it closes again after 400 ms because no files are being dragged.

About a third of a second into a drag from File Explorer or the desktop, the same key bar appears next to the pointer and follows it. It goes away when the wheel opens, when you release the button or when you press Esc, and it never gets in the way of a click or a drop. Windows does not say what is being dragged until it reaches Pomelo, so the bar also shows while you draw a selection box or drag a scroll bar; it stays hidden while you move or resize a window. Settings has a switch to turn it off.

Keys

Open Settings from the tray menu, or start Pomelo again from Start. Settings maps one key to each tab. The choices are Shift, Ctrl, Alt, F8 and F9, one key per tab and no combinations. The defaults are Shift for Convert, Ctrl for Tools and Alt for Actions. If you pick a key that another tab uses, the two tabs swap keys. Explorer does nothing with F8 and F9 during a drag.

Sticky keys

Five quick presses of Shift bring up the Windows Sticky keys prompt. If you convert many batches in a row, either turn off "Keyboard shortcut for Sticky keys" under Settings > Accessibility > Keyboard > Sticky keys, or map Convert to F8 or F9 in Pomelo's Settings.

What each tab offers

The wheel always has eight slots. Slots without an operation stay as faint inert glass. The wheel opens on the tab of the key you tapped, even when that tab has nothing enabled; the hub in the middle then names the key for Actions, for example "Nothing to convert · Alt for Actions".

Convert and Tools show an operation only when every dropped file is of the same kind and the operation applies. A mix of kinds, folders or other files gets Actions only.

Images (jpg, jpeg, png, webp, heic, heif, avif, tif, tiff, bmp, gif):

• Convert: JPG, PNG, WEBP, AVIF, HEIC, TIFF, BMP, and PDF (one PDF per image).
• Tools: Compress light, Compress strong, Resize 50%, Resize 1920 px, Resize 1280 px, Rotate 90° (a quarter turn clockwise), Strip metadata, and Combine into PDF (one PDF for all the images).

PDF:

• Convert: PNG and JPG, one image per page at 150 dpi.
• Tools: Merge, Split into pages, Compress, Rotate 90°, Strip metadata. Merge needs two or more PDFs; with one it is dimmed and says "Needs 2 or more PDFs".

Audio (mp3, m4a, aac, wav, flac, wma):

• Convert: MP3, M4A, WAV, FLAC.
• Tools: Compress (128 kbps) and Mono.

Video (mp4, m4v, mov, wmv, avi, mkv, webm):

• Convert: MP4, MP3 (extract audio), M4A (extract audio).
• Tools: Compress 1080p, Compress 720p, Mute.

Actions, for any mix of regular files and folders:

• Float: opens a floating glass shelf at the drop point holding references to the items.
• Copy path: copies the full paths to the clipboard, one per line.
• ZIP: creates a ZIP next to the first item.
• Share: opens the Windows share sheet.
• Copy to…: asks for a folder, then copies with Windows' own file operation.
• Move to…: asks for a folder, then moves with Windows' own file operation.

A Convert wedge whose format matches every dropped file is dimmed, and the hub shows the reason, for example "Already WEBP". If only some of the files already have that format, those files are skipped.

The settings behind the wedges:

• Compress light uses quality 82. Compress strong uses quality 60 and caps the longest side at 2560 px.
• Resize 50% halves both sides. Resize 1920 px and Resize 1280 px set the longest side to that value and never enlarge.
• Convert to JPG uses quality 90, WEBP quality 85, AVIF quality 60 with effort 4, HEIC quality 0.9. PNG, TIFF and BMP are lossless.
• Compress keeps JPEG and WebP files in their format. PNG, BMP, TIFF, GIF, HEIC and AVIF files are written as JPEG, or as WebP when the image has transparency.
• MP3 and M4A are written as stereo, 48 kHz, 192 kbps. WAV and FLAC keep the source's sample rate and channels. Compress (128 kbps) keeps MP3 and M4A files in their format; WAV, FLAC, WMA and AAC files become MP3. Mono writes 96 kbps for MP3 and M4A, and turns WMA into MP3 and AAC into M4A.
• Compress 1080p limits the long side to 1920 px and the short side to 1080 px. Compress 720p limits them to 1280 px and 720 px. Neither enlarges a video, and the frame rate is the source's, capped at 60. Convert to MP4 uses the 1080p limits. Mute always writes an MP4.
• A rotation tag on phone video is kept, so the result plays the right way up.
• Convert to PDF and Combine into PDF make one page per image, sized from the image's stored DPI when it is between 96 and 1200, and at 150 dpi otherwise.

Where results go

Results are new files next to the originals. The names:

The suffix is added even when the format changes: photo.png compressed becomes photo-compressed.jpg.

Pomelo never overwrites a file. A taken name gets (1), (2) and so on before the extension. Merge, Combine into PDF and ZIP write to the first item's folder. Merge and Combine into PDF take the files in Explorer's name order, so page2 comes before page10.

When the originals' folder is not writable, the result goes to Downloads\Pomelo, and the result card says so. Settings changes this fallback folder and has an "Always save to the fallback folder" option. If neither folder accepts the file, the message is "Pomelo can't write here or to the fallback folder."

A compressed file that is not smaller is removed, and the original is reported as "Already as small as it gets". A resize that would enlarge a picture is reported as "Already smaller than that".

A progress card appears at the bottom right when a job takes longer than 400 ms. A job that ends within 400 ms with every file done shows no card at all. When every file is done, a card with "Done · Show in folder" stays for the message duration set in Windows and then fades. If a file was skipped or failed, or a result went to the fallback folder, a result card such as "8 done · 1 skipped · 1 failed" stays until you close it. Its Details list the file names with the reason for each.

Limits and free files

A drop can hold at most 200 items. With more, no wedge is enabled, Actions included, and the hub says "Too many files (max 200)". Items inside a ZIP folder or on a phone have no path on disk. The hub says "Not regular files" and no wedge is enabled.

Convert and Tools give you 20 free files. Each file that produces a result uses one. Skipped and failed files are free, and so are all Actions. When the files you drag outnumber the free files left, the Convert and Tools wedges are dimmed with a lock, the hub shows how many are left (for example "1 free file left"), and a drop on one opens the Unlock window. The tray menu entry "Unlock Pomelo (N free files left)" shows the same count until you unlock.

Unlock is a one-time purchase in the Microsoft Store. The Unlock window shows the price from the Store. Once you own it, Pomelo remembers that on your PC, so it works offline.

Codecs

Pomelo uses the audio and video codecs of Windows and ships none of its own for audio and video. HEIC and BMP images also go through Windows. The other image formats are handled by the libvips library that ships with Pomelo.

HEIC files need the HEIF Image Extensions and the HEVC Video Extensions from the Microsoft Store. Without them, the wedges that read HEIC files and the HEIC wedge are dimmed and show "Needs HEIC extensions". Resize, Rotate and Strip metadata on a HEIC file are dimmed too, because they write HEIC back.

Video is checked when the job opens it. If Windows cannot decode the video, the file fails with a reason and a button for the fix in the Details of the result card:

• "This PC can't decode HEVC video." with "Get HEVC Video Extensions".
• "This PC can't decode VP9 video." with "Find VP9 Video Extensions".
• "This PC can't decode AV1 video." with "Get AV1 Video Extension".

Windows N editions need the Media Feature Pack for any audio and video work (Settings > Optional features). Without it those wedges are dimmed and show "Needs Media Feature Pack". The message is "Audio and video need the Media Feature Pack." with an "Open optional features" button.

A drop on a dimmed wedge whose codec is missing opens a small window titled with the reason. It has one button for each fix: "Get HEIF Image Extensions", "Get HEVC Video Extensions" or "Open optional features". The buttons open the Microsoft Store or Windows Settings.

Windows that run as administrator

While a window that runs as administrator is in front, Windows hides its key presses from other apps, so the wheel cannot open over it. Pomelo never runs as administrator. Drag from an ordinary Explorer window.

Formats and metadata

• Every image operation applies the EXIF orientation to the pixels and writes the orientation as 1.
• The ICC profile is kept, except that BMP and HEIC inputs are converted to sRGB when they are read, BMP and HEIC outputs carry no profile, and PDF pages made from images other than JPEG carry no profile.
• Convert and the tools keep EXIF, XMP and IPTC, minus the orientation. Strip metadata removes EXIF, XMP and IPTC and keeps the ICC profile.
• A GIF is read from its first frame.
• BMP carries no metadata at all.
• PNG, WebP and AVIF outputs drop IPTC.
• BigTIFF and CIELAB TIFF inputs lose their EXIF, because the Windows imaging component cannot open them.
• IPTC from TIFF inputs is lost.
• When the EXIF of a TIFF input is larger than 64 KB, for example because of a large maker note, only the dates and GPS are kept.
• TIFF outputs in float, 32-bit integer, 16-bit CMYK, grey with alpha, or with more than four bands are written without EXIF.
• Transparent pixels are flattened onto white before JPEG, BMP and HEIC outputs and before an image goes into a PDF.
• Rotate re-encodes lossy formats at quality 95. Version 1 does not rotate JPEG files losslessly.
• PDF Strip metadata clears the document information and the XMP metadata. It keeps the modification date, and it does not touch the metadata inside embedded images.
• PDF Compress is lossless and cannot reduce the resolution of images, so scanned PDFs may not shrink. When the result is not smaller, it is removed and the original is reported as "Already as small as it gets".
• A protected PDF fails with "This PDF is protected." and the result card counts it as failed.
• Converting a PDF to PNG or JPG renders every page at 150 dpi.

Start at sign-in

Start at sign-in is off when Pomelo is installed. The Welcome window has a "Start Pomelo when I sign in" toggle, on by default, and applies it when Welcome closes, however you close it. Settings turns it on or off at any time. If you turned it off in Task Manager, only Task Manager can turn it back on, and Settings tells you so.

Float shelf

Float opens a glass shelf at the drop point. It holds references to the files and makes no copies, and it shows up to three thumbnails and a count. Drag items out of it to copy them, or drop more items onto it. It stays until you close it with its X button and does not survive a restart of Pomelo.

Logs and support

Pomelo writes a log in the LocalState\logs folder of its app data. It records operations, file extensions, error codes and timings, and each time the wheel opens, switches tab or closes, with the tab and the reason it closed. It never records file names or paths. It keeps at most three files of 2 MB and never sends them anywhere. To open the folder, paste %LOCALAPPDATA%Packagesandrealo.Pomelo_1treqmb6a3p46LocalStatelogs into the address bar of File Explorer.

If the wheel does not open, check the tray icon. While Pause is on, the icon is dimmed and its tooltip reads "Pomelo (paused)". Choose Resume in the tray menu.

Contact: andrealoroni2.0@gmail.com