Help Center

LabTools is a free scientific research application for research groups, made by Filliaux Industries: a desktop app for Windows, macOS and Linux, a web app and an iPhone app (beta), all on one account. It is built for collaboration within a lab, between labs and between universities, and it gives every experiment one home for its data, analysis, figures, protocols and notebook entries. Because plots, statistics and figures already live with the experiment, writing the manuscript starts from results that are organised rather than scattered across folders.

Create an account at https://www.thelabtools.com/auth/register, or from the sign-in screen in the desktop app. One account works in the app and on the website.

Go to https://www.thelabtools.com/download and enter the download password. LabTools is in early access (alpha). Downloads need an access password, which you can request through the alpha programme (shaun@thelabtools.com) or the contact page.

In the desktop app open Teams, create a team and invite members by email. Members share team storage and team experiments according to their role.

More than 25 publication-ready chart types, including histograms, box, violin and raincloud plots, scatter, survival, ROC, Bland–Altman, forest, dose–response, volcano and PCA plots. A native statistics engine runs t-tests (Welch, Student, paired, one-sample), Mann–Whitney U, Wilcoxon signed-rank, Kruskal–Wallis, one- and two-way ANOVA, ANOVA, normality and variance tests, correlation, effect sizes, multiple-comparison correction, power analysis, contingency tables, meta-analysis and curve fitting. Figures export to SVG, PNG and PDF.

Data imports from CSV, TSV, text and Excel (.xlsx, .xls) files; AFM force data from Asylum, JPK and Bruker files; gel images for gel analysis. Figures export to SVG, PNG and PDF, and the .labt format keeps a chart fully editable.

Yes. LabTools reads AFM force curves and force maps (Asylum Research force maps (.ARDF) and single curves (.ibw); JPK QI maps, force maps and force curves; Bruker NanoScope force files; text exports) and computes Young's modulus (Hertz, Sneddon, DMT and JKR contact models, with thin-film corrections) and breakthrough forces for supported lipid bilayers. AFM image analysis, such as DNA tracing and particle measurement, is done in the companion app FiTrace2 (Windows).

Yes. A Code tab runs sandboxed code cells against the app's own API, the labtools command-line tool scripts imports, statistics, plots and experiments, and the labtools-mcp server lets AI agents such as Claude drive the app.

You write protocols in LabTools and every edit creates a new version. An experiment links to a specific version and is moved to the current one only when you choose to. Protocols can be shared with a team.

Free. Every feature is unlocked, there is no trial period and no credit card. Cloud storage on an account is capped (currently 50 MB); files kept on your own computer are not counted. LabTools is in early access (alpha). Downloads need an access password, which you can request through the alpha programme (shaun@thelabtools.com) or the contact page.

Yes. Team workspaces give a lab shared storage and role-based access. Collaborations bring in people from other labs or universities, with shared files and folders, an updates timeline with comments, and chat. Experiments, manuscripts and collaborations are shared by invitation with a role, so nothing is shared by accident.

Sign-in uses OAuth 2.0 / OpenID Connect with optional two-factor authentication, and every request carries a token that the server checks. Database rows are isolated per user and per team. All connections use HTTPS/TLS. The desktop app holds no storage keys: the LabTools server checks your account before any cloud file is read or written.

Yes. Cloud files are ordinary files you can download from the Files page at any time, and local files stay on your computer. Plots and figures export to SVG, PNG and PDF, and to .labt for later editing.

Windows 10 and 11, 64-bit (installer with signed automatic updates); macOS on Apple Silicon (M-series) Macs (.dmg); Linux x86_64 (AppImage and .deb; needs glibc 2.36 or newer and WebKitGTK 4.1, for example Debian 12 or Ubuntu 24.04); Web app in any modern browser: sign in at https://www.thelabtools.com for your files, experiments, notebooks, protocols, messages, calendar and teams; iPhone app (beta, through TestFlight; the invite is on the download page). One account works everywhere. The desktop app (Windows, macOS, Linux) does the full analysis, plotting and figure work and keeps working offline; the web app reaches your files, experiments, notebooks and messages from any browser; the iPhone app (beta) keeps your lab, messages and files with you at the bench. All of them use the same cloud workspace.

Yes, the desktop app does. It is a native app (Tauri and Rust with a React interface). Analysis, plotting, notebooks and experiments work with no connection, and files pinned for offline use stay available. Cloud storage, teams, collaborations and calls need a connection.

Yes. The desktop app runs a local JSON-RPC interface on 127.0.0.1 (loopback only, token-authenticated). The labtools command-line tool and the labtools-mcp MCP server sit on top of it, so Claude and other MCP clients can import data, run statistics, create plots and figures and manage experiments, with every step recorded in the app.