Once WSL is installed, the obvious question is what to actually put in it. For development you’d choose by language, but for everyday file work there’s a short, dependable set of tools that earns its place on any Windows machine. They convert images, compress PDFs, edit video, strip metadata — the jobs you’d otherwise hand to an upload-it-here website.
This is the install-once-use-forever list. Everything here is free, open source, and runs locally, so your files never leave your machine. If WSL isn’t set up yet, start with the WSL install guide.
Install the whole set in one command
apt takes multiple packages at once, so the entire toolkit goes in with a single line:
sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y \
ffmpeg imagemagick ghostscript poppler-utils qpdf \
webp libimage-exiftool-perl img2pdf jpegoptim optipngThat’s the lot. The download is small and it finishes in under a minute on a normal connection.
What each tool is for
The essential WSL toolkit
| ffmpeg | Compress, convert, trim video; extract audio |
|---|---|
| imagemagick | Resize, convert, and compress images |
| ghostscript | Compress and process PDFs |
| poppler-utils | Split PDFs, PDF to images, extract text |
| qpdf | Merge, split, decrypt PDFs |
| webp | cwebp / dwebp for WebP conversion |
| libimage-exiftool-perl | View and strip image metadata |
| img2pdf | Combine images into a PDF losslessly |
| jpegoptim / optipng | Lossless JPG / PNG optimization |
FFmpeg — anything video or audio
The single most useful tool here. It compresses video, converts MOV/MKV to MP4, extracts audio as MP3, trims clips without re-encoding, and makes GIFs.
ImageMagick — the image swiss-army knife
Resize, convert between formats, and compress in one tool. See batch resize images.
Ghostscript, Poppler, and qpdf — the PDF trio
Between them they cover nearly every PDF job: Ghostscript compresses, Poppler (split, PDF to images, extract text), and qpdf merges and decrypts.
webp, ExifTool, and the optimizers
The webp package gives you cwebp and dwebp for WebP conversion. ExifTool handles metadata and GPS removal. jpegoptim and optipng do lossless image compression.
Why these over Windows apps
What this toolkit gives you
- Free and open source — no purchase, no account
- Runs locally — files never uploaded
- Batches whole folders in one command
- No watermarks, size caps, or ads
- Same tools work on Windows 10 and 11
- Easy to update all at once
Many of these are the same engines that paid apps and websites quietly run behind their interfaces. Using them directly skips the middleman, the upload, and the cost.
Keeping them updated
Update everything you’ve installed in one go, now and then:
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -yThat pulls the current versions of every package from your distro’s repositories. To remove a tool you don’t want, use sudo apt remove <name>.
Wrapping up
The best WSL command-line tools for everyday Windows use are a short, free set you can install in one apt line: FFmpeg, ImageMagick, Ghostscript, Poppler, qpdf, webp, ExifTool, and a couple of optimizers. Together they cover image, PDF, and video work locally, with no uploads and no cost, and they update together with a single command.
Install them once and you’ve got a private, batch-capable toolkit for the file jobs people usually pay for or upload. For the task-by-task tour, see 10 useful things you can do with WSL, and for the file basics, access your Windows files from WSL.
