A tour of the Hangar window

Hangar is one window: a sidebar on the left and a work area on the right. The sidebar has four places, Studios, Tools, Chains and Runs, plus your favorite tools and your workspaces. Search and Settings live in the title bar, one keystroke away from any screen.

The window at a glance

This is the Tools home, the screen Hangar shows when you want to process files. The five areas marked below each have a section on this page and a deeper guide of their own.

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1. 1Sidebar: Studios, Tools, Chains and Runs
2. 2Workspace switcher
3. 3Search tools (⌘K)
4. 4Drop zone
5. 5Tool cards

Tools: drop files, pick a tool

Most work starts here. Drop files onto the zone at the top and Hangar opens the tab that matches them. Below it the line reads Or pick a file type below. Nothing leaves this machine., and a Browse… button opens a file picker instead.

Under the drop zone sits the catalog, headed Tools, with a search box that reads Search tools, formats or tasks. Press / to jump into it and Esc to clear it. Type a tool name, a format such as “heic”, or a task such as “compress”.

The tabs sort the catalog by file type: All, Image, Video, Audio, PDF, Web & Ebook, then Any file and Create. Each tab shows how many tools it holds. Once you have dropped files, the tabs that can take them get an amber dot.

Every tool card shows the tool's name, a one-line description, and what goes in and what comes out, for example image to JPG PNG WEBP on Image Convert. The star adds the tool to Favorites in the sidebar. A Soon badge means the tool is not available yet; after you drop files, tools that cannot take them are marked Not for these files.

Click a card to open the tool screen. Its breadcrumb reads Tools / and the tool's name, with your file queue on the left and the settings and the run button on the right. Running a tool takes five short steps, and the same screen handles hundreds of files at once. Popular starting points are Compress PDF, Convert images and Compress video.

Studios: an editor for one file

A Studio is a full-screen editor for a single file, for work you do by hand rather than in a batch. The Studios home reads Open a file, or pick up where you left off. Drop a file onto Drop a file to open it, or click Open file (⌘O, Ctrl+O on Windows).

PDF Studio is where you read, annotate, redact and arrange pages; click Open on its tile. The other Studio tiles are marked Soon. Below the tiles, Recent files lists what you worked on, in a Grid or a List. Many tools open a Studio of their own too, for trimming a clip or framing a screenshot in a device mockup; the Studios guide walks through four of them.

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1. 1Open file
2. 2Open PDF Studio
3. 3Recent files

Chains: several tools in a row

A chain is a set of steps you set up once and run on any batch of files: resize, then convert, then compress, for example. The Chains page lists your chains, each with its steps, its last run or Not run yet, and a Run button. Find a chain searches the list, and New chain starts a blank one.

If you would rather not start from nothing, Start from a template offers ready-made chains such as Web-ready photos, Social export and Straighten & shrink. Read Build your first chain to make one, then run it on many files.

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1. 1New chain
2. 2Run this chain
3. 3Start from a template

Runs: everything you have processed

Runs keeps a record of every run in the current workspace, grouped by day. Filter it with All, Complete, Failed, Cancelled or Stopped; a filter only appears once a run has that status. Each row shows the tool, how many files it took and how long it ran, a size change such as 32 MB to 10 MB or a format change such as HEIC to WEBP, how long ago it ran, and its status.

Click a row to reopen the run with its results and previews. The run history guide covers filters and failed runs; See and compare your results explains every result view.

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1. 1Filter by status
2. 2What changed
3. 3Run status

Workspaces: one per client or project

The Workspaces section of the sidebar lists your workspaces. Each one is a client or a project with its own brand, output folder and run history. Click a row to switch, or click the + next to the heading to create one. The sidebar footer names the current workspace, with its number of chains and the number of tools in Hangar.

Press ⌘B (Ctrl+B on Windows) to open Workspace defaults, where you set the Logo, Brand colors, Signature and Default output folder that tools in this workspace use. The workspaces guide explains which tools use each default, and Where Hangar saves your files covers the output folder in detail.

Above the workspaces sits Favorites: the tools you starred, ready to open in one click. To reorder them with the keyboard, focus a favorite's drag handle, press Space and move it with the arrow keys.

Search from anywhere with ⌘K

The Search tools box in the title bar works from every screen. Press ⌘K (Ctrl+K on Windows) to open it. Its placeholder reads Search tools, or describe what you want to do, and it means it: type “make this pdf smaller” and the first result is PDF Compress.

Move with ↑ and ↓, open with ↵, close with Esc. Understanding plain-language requests in 50+ languages needs Smart search, a one-time 127 MB download that then runs entirely on your computer. Until you download it, the box matches tool names and keywords. Find any tool with smart search has examples and the download steps.

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1. 1Describe the task
2. 2Open the top result
3. 3Smart search status

Settings and the title bar

The gear at the right end of the title bar opens Settings, or press ⌘, (Ctrl+, on Windows). It has seven sections: General, Appearance, Menu bar (System tray on Windows), Updates, Privacy, License and About, which is where you find your Hangar version. The settings guide covers the theme, updates and privacy choices.

Hangar also puts an icon in your Mac's menu bar, or the system tray on Windows. Click it to run a quick job on a few files or download a video without opening this window. See use Hangar from the menu bar.

During the free trial, a card at the bottom of the sidebar shows how many days are left and an Activate link. When you are ready, activate your license there or in Settings under License.