Windows 11 · File Explorer shell extension

Right Click PNG

Convert images to PNG from the right-click menu. No network calls, no detours. Adds Convert to PNG and Copy as PNG to the File Explorer context menu, so the round-trip through an online converter stops happening.

Latest v0.1.0
Platform Windows 11 x64
License MIT
Price Free

The problem

The .webp that won't paste

Some images just don't download and paste. You save a .webp from the web, try to drop it into Teams or Figma, and the app rejects it. You save a .heic from your phone, and your image editor refuses to open it.

The workaround is always the same: find an online converter, upload the file, download a PNG, move it to where you actually needed it.

Right Click PNG replaces that detour with a right-click.

What it does

Two verbs where you already are

Right-click any .webp, .avif, .heic, .heif, .jpg, .jpeg, .bmp, .tif, .tiff or .gif in File Explorer. No separate app to open.

Convert to PNG

Saves a PNG next to the original, same base name, new extension.

Copy as PNG

Sends PNG bytes to the clipboard, ready to paste into Teams, Slack, Discord, Figma, Photoshop, Outlook, Word, PowerPoint, OneNote, Paint or Snipping Tool. Works on a .png too, for the paste without opening the file.

The whole selection at once

Multi-select files and the right-click action runs against the whole selection in one shot, with a single summary toast when the batch completes.

Two toggles, one window

A branded settings window with a dark title bar, opened from the Start menu or from the right-click menu itself. Confirm-before-overwrite lives here. Changes apply on the next right-click, no reboot.

Off by default

JPEG when you need it

Convert to JPEG and Copy as JPEG are both there, hidden behind a settings toggle for anyone who needs them.

See it work

Right there in File Explorer

The File Explorer right-click menu on a .webp file, showing Convert to PNG and Copy as PNG
Right there in the menu. Right-click a .webp in File Explorer: Convert to PNG and Copy as PNG, no app to open first.
The toast after Convert to PNG, with the new .png beside the original
Converted, in place. The toast confirms it, and the new .png sits next to the original in the same folder.
A .heic file copied as PNG and pasted into Paint
Paste anywhere. Copy as PNG puts a real PNG on the clipboard, so any app that takes an image takes it. Here a .heic lands in Paint.
The Right Click PNG settings window with its two toggles, Show JPEG variants and Confirm before overwriting
Two toggles. Show JPEG variants, and confirm before overwriting. That's the whole settings surface.
Three selected files, .webp, .avif and .heic, with the Right Click to PNG submenu open
One right-click, the whole batch. A mixed selection of .webp, .avif and .heic. With several files selected, the menu offers Convert.
The folder after a batch conversion, each .png beside its original, with a toast reading Converted 3 files to PNG
One toast for the batch. Three files converted, each new .png beside its original.

How it's built

Idea to Microsoft Store in 24 hours

Built end to end with Vibe Cartographer, from the first scoping question to a signed MSIX approved on the Store. Shipped 2026-04-22.

24h
Idea to Store listing
7
Bundled decoders
85
Tests green
~1 MB
AOT engine
C++/WinRT

The shell extension

A Win32 COM server that File Explorer hosts directly, the same way it hosts Windows' own right-click verbs. It stays minimal on purpose: read the selection, read settings, launch the engine, show the toast.

.NET 9 Native AOT

The engine

A standalone converter, called once per invocation. No runtime warm-up. Decoding runs on bundled libwebp, libavif, libheif, libspng and libjpeg-turbo; BMP, GIF and TIFF are read by hand-rolled C#.

MSIX

One package

Signs and packages both, and registers the COM classes and file-type associations. The Store install auto-updates and uninstalls cleanly.

The engine and the shell extension are split across a process boundary on purpose. Explorer loads the extension as a DLL, so a decoder that crashes on a malformed file takes down a short-lived engine process, never Explorer. The extension sees a non-zero exit code and shows an error toast.

Trust

Offline by design

Disconnect, and it all still works.

No network
No network calls of any kind. No update checks, no phone-home. The engine's P/Invoke bindings carry no HTTP, because there's no HTTP. Read the source and check.
No telemetry
No telemetry, no crash reports, no analytics. No account, no sign-in, no cloud sync. Install it, use it, that's the whole surface.
Original never touched
The original file is never modified, moved or deleted. Convert writes a new file beside it.
Color kept
ICC color profiles are preserved when the source has one. No profile in, no profile out.
Rotation kept
EXIF orientation is baked into the pixel data before the metadata is stripped, so rotated photos stay rotated.

Reach

Where it ended up

Every Microsoft Store install since launch, plotted by country. Dot area is proportional to install count.