What Is a QR Bundle? A New Way to Share Multiple QR Codes

The shopping trip that made me build this

A few weeks ago my wife and I drove around the Dallas Metroplex looking for furniture. We hit two stores — Nebraska Furniture Mart and Living Spaces — scanning the QR code on every price tag we liked. By the end of the day we had a camera roll with twenty-five-plus links and no order.

Our daughter is at Texas A&M University in College Station, TX. She has a good eye, and we wanted her in on the decision even from her dorm. The plan was to bring the list home and review it together over the next several evenings.

It fell apart on the first text. I sent eight links to our daughter over WhatsApp; she opened eight separate browser tabs, and by tab six she had no idea which one was which. My wife and I hit the same wall on the couch that night — which of those twenty-five product pages was which? Even though we had been in the room when we scanned them, the links did not survive the trip home.

We took a full week to decide. The furniture got ordered in the end, but the process was nothing like the calm research evenings we had pictured.

That is the problem QR Bundles solve.

I am Jangul Aslam, creator of NxtTools, and the post you are reading is biased: NxtTools is currently the only app that creates and reads .qrb files, and I built the feature because of the week above. What I will not do is invent advantages or pretend QR Bundles replace QR codes everywhere. They do not. They are a new option for one specific job: turning a pile of links you collected on the move into something you and the people you care about can review together later.

NxtTools is made by Const Agility, LLC out of Houston, Texas, and the app runs on iPhone, iPad, and Android. On Apple Silicon Macs (M1 and up), the iPad app also installs natively from the Mac App Store and runs as a desktop application — useful if you would rather organize a bundle on a real keyboard.

TL;DR

A QR Bundle is a small file (extension .qrb) that holds a collection of links — the URLs you decoded from QR codes, plus any links you added by hand.
You share the file the way you share any file: AirDrop, iMessage, WhatsApp, email. Your recipient taps it and sees every link in one view.
It is not a QR code itself. There is no "master QR" that opens a bundle — think of .qrb more like a ZIP file for links.
What ships today in NxtTools: a free, no-account bundle of links that runs entirely on your phone. What is coming separately at qrly.space: richer item cards with images, prices, locations, and notes — the full take-home-your-store-visit story.
The format is open and documented at github.com/ConstAgility/qrbundle.

What is a QR Bundle?

A QR Bundle is a file that holds a collection of links. Each link in the bundle is either a URL you decoded from a QR code (like the store-product-page QRs at Nebraska Furniture Mart and Living Spaces) or a URL you typed in manually.

You build the bundle once, on your phone. From then on it behaves like any other file. You share it, archive it, re-share it, reorder it. The recipient opens the .qrb in NxtTools and sees every link in one view, in the order you set, with whatever labels you gave each one.

There is no master QR code that "opens" a bundle. A .qrb is not addressable from a single scan. It is a file you send — the same way you send a PDF or a photo album.

The friction it removes is on the recipient side. Sending one file means one tap to open, one view to scroll, one decision context. Sending twenty-five links means twenty-five tabs, twenty-five context switches, and a conversation that never recovers.

Why a single QR code was not enough

A normal QR code points at one thing. That works fine when you have one thing.

The moment you have ten, twenty, twenty-five, your options stop being good:

Send the links one at a time. People open the first two, lose track, and skip the rest.
Drop the links into a doc, then QR the doc. Now there is a loading screen, a permissions prompt, and a friction step that turns half your recipients off.
Use a "linktree" service. Works, but it is a third-party page with ads and a public URL anyone can find. Not great for a shopping list you are sharing with three family members.

A QR Bundle removes the middle service. The file lives on your phone. You send it the way you send any other file. The recipient opens it locally. No web round-trip.

How a QR Bundle works (the technical bit)

A .qrb file is a ZIP archive with the MIME type application/vnd.qrbundle. Inside, the structure is intentionally small and inspectable:

manifest.json — bundle-level metadata (title, schema version, anything that describes the bundle as a whole)
qrset.json — the QR codes / links collection
assets/ — directory for supporting files (images and similar)
mimetype — optional MIME-type marker file

The current schema version is qrbundle/1.0, with an explicit backward-compatibility guarantee: existing fields will not be removed, and unknown fields must be ignored by readers. That means a .qrb you create today is still openable by a .qrb reader two years from now, even if newer writers start adding richer per-entry fields.

The format itself is designed to carry titles, notes, prices, images, and per-entry locations: a richer item-card structure than a bare link. NxtTools today implements the links subset only: each entry in your bundle is a URL with an optional label. The richer item-card experience (the part where your "sectional from Living Spaces" entry carries the product photo, the price tag, your note, and the store location) is the upcoming QRly product. NxtTools writes the simpler form for free so the format gets adopted; QRly will exercise the rest.

The full format spec lives at github.com/ConstAgility/qrbundle.

When QR Bundles solve a real problem

Three jobs they fit well.

Bringing a store visit home for collaborative decision-making

The week I opened with. The pattern: one or two people go out, scan and capture things at the store, come home, and need to share the full list with someone who could not be there in person: a partner who stayed home, an adult kid away at college, a parent in another time zone. They also need to be able to come back to the list themselves, over several evenings, without losing the thread. A bundle turns a chaotic camera-roll-plus-WhatsApp-thread into one shareable file the whole group can open, scroll, and discuss — once or twenty times over the week the decision actually takes.

This generalizes to anywhere QR codes hang next to merchandise: large furniture showrooms, appliance stores, kitchen showrooms, lighting stores, art galleries with QR-tagged price cards. If you are making a buy decision with someone who is not in the room, this is the use case.

Real-estate property packs

An agent walking a client through six homes can pre-build a .qrb with each listing URL, plus the MLS link, the inspection PDF, and the agent's contact-card URL. The client takes it home in one file instead of six text messages. Today's NxtTools version handles the link subset of this; richer property cards with photo galleries are the QRly version.

Quick collections you want to reopen later

Recipes from a magazine. Wine labels at a tasting. Books on a friend's shelf. Anything you would otherwise screenshot and forget about. A bundle keeps the URLs together with labels you will still understand in three months.

How to make a QR Bundle in 60 seconds

QR Bundles is one of NxtTools' on-device tools, which means it runs entirely on your phone — no signup, no SSO, no account at all. (None of NxtTools' tools need an account today. The server-processed tools like PDF compression play one short reward ad per run instead of taking your sign-in, which is a different surface and not relevant here. Account sign-up exists, but it only unlocks customer support access today; subscriptions and AI on-demand pricing are on the roadmap.) For QR Bundles, you install the app and you are building bundles inside a minute.

Open NxtTools on your phone.
Tap QR Bundles on the home screen.
Tap New Bundle and give it a name (e.g. Couches at NFM and Living Spaces).
Add links. You can either scan a QR code (NxtTools captures the URL inside) or type a URL manually.
Reorder if you want — long-press to drag.
Tap Share and pick the recipient app (AirDrop, Messages, WhatsApp, email).

The recipient needs NxtTools to open the file. If they already have it installed, the share sheet on iOS and Android surfaces NxtTools as an "Open in" target. If they do not have it yet, they can install NxtTools from the App Store or Google Play and re-open the bundle from their share thread — first launch registers the .qrb extension so future bundles open straight from the share sheet.

When NxtTools is not the right fit

Honest call-outs so this does not read like a sales pitch.

You only have one link, not ten. Do not use a bundle for a single Wi-Fi password or a single menu link. A bundle adds a wrapper your recipient does not need.
You only need a plain static QR code for one URL. Web tools like QRCode Monkey and ME-QR generate a customizable static QR for free, no account, no install — QRCode Monkey is unusually generous on the free tier (unlimited static codes, logo upload, PNG/SVG/PDF/EPS export, no signup), and ME-QR claims free unlimited static and dynamic QR with lifetime availability and only upsells customization and analytics. NxtTools' QR Bundles is built for the case where one QR is not enough — multiple links, on your phone, off the web. For a single-URL QR aimed at the open public, an honest free web generator is the simpler tool.
You need a dynamic QR for marketing. A .qrb file is static. The links inside it do not change after you send the file. If you need to rotate destinations (for example, swap a holiday landing page for a regular one without reprinting), use a dynamic-QR service. The closest paid options:
- Bitly / qr-code-generator.com (Bitly-owned) — Starter around $5/user/mo on annual billing, Advanced around $12.50 for 2 users/mo, Professional around $37.50 for 5 users/mo. Advanced and Professional require annual billing.
- Uniqode (formerly Beaconstac) — Lite $15/user/mo on annual billing is the floor for dynamic QR; Pro $49/user/mo; Plus $99 for 3 users/mo. We do not compete in that space.
You need scan analytics. No tracking. That is a privacy decision, not an oversight. If you need to know who scanned what, a dynamic-QR service from the list above is the right tool.
You want item cards with images, prices, notes, and locations. That is the QRly vision, not the NxtTools-today scope. NxtTools handles the link-bundle subset today; the richer item-card experience is upcoming at qrly.space.
You want a hosted link-in-bio page. Services like Linktree, Beacons, and Linkin.bio give you a public landing page anyone can find from one URL or a single QR. That is the opposite trade-off from QR Bundles: a public page everyone discovers vs a private file you hand to specific people. If your job is reaching an open audience from a social bio, a link-in-bio is the right tool — bundles are the right tool when you want the opposite.
You need to share with people who refuse to install another app. Today the bundle reader is NxtTools-only. For one-off interactions with strangers, a single QR or a public landing page will be lower friction.

These QR Bundle limits are deliberate. The feature is built to do one job — private, portable, multi-link sharing — well, rather than be a multi-purpose QR marketing platform.

But the app you install to use QR Bundles is not a single-feature install. NxtTools also ships a document scanner, PDF tools (compress, merge, split, grayscale, extract pages), image tools (compress, rotate, resize, sign), and a signature pad. If you came for QR Bundles and end up scanning a contract on your phone next week, the same install is already there. The competitor stack you would otherwise carry — a QR scanner, a separate PDF compressor like Smallpdf or PDF24, an image tool, a signature app — adds up to four or five installs and a couple of subscriptions before you have what the NxtTools install gives you in one tap.

What is coming next: QRly

NxtTools ships the link-bundle subset of .qrb today, for free, with no account required. That is intentional. The format only matters if people use it, and free + simple is how a file format gets adopted. PDF did not win because Adobe charged for the reader; it won because the reader was free everywhere.

The richer story (bundles where each entry is an item card with its product image, price tag, store location, and your personal notes) lands separately at qrly.space. Same .qrb format underneath, more of its fields exercised on top, with the social side (sharing decisions with a group, getting input back in one place) built in from day one. The site is up in stealth today with an In the works… note; if the week I described in the intro sounds like a furniture-shopping trip you have had, that is the product to watch.

FAQ

What is a QR Bundle?

A QR Bundle is a small file (extension .qrb) that holds a collection of links. The links can come from scanning QR codes or from manual entry. The file itself is a ZIP archive containing a manifest.json, a qrset.json, and an optional assets/ directory. You share it like any other file; recipients open it in NxtTools to see every link in one view.

Does opening a QR Bundle require scanning a QR code?

No. A .qrb is a file, not a QR-addressable resource. You share it the way you share any file — AirDrop, iMessage, WhatsApp, email, file sync. There is no master QR code that opens a bundle.

What apps can open a .qrb file?

Today, only the NxtTools app on iPhone, iPad, and Android can read .qrb files. QR Bundles runs entirely on your phone — no signup, no SSO, no account at all. (None of NxtTools' tools need an account today; sign-up exists but only unlocks customer support access.) On an Apple Silicon Mac (M1 and up), the same iPad NxtTools app installs natively from the Mac App Store and runs as a desktop application, so a Mac user can read and write .qrb files without going to their phone. Intel Macs are not supported via this path. A richer item-card experience built on the same format is upcoming at QRly.

Are QR Bundles tracked or analytics-enabled?

No. QR Bundles are static files; nothing inside them phones home. There is no scan-tracking dashboard. If you need scan analytics, a dynamic-QR service is the right tool — that is not what NxtTools does.

Do QR Bundles work without internet?

Yes. Once the .qrb file is on your phone, opening and viewing the bundle is fully offline. Internet is only required when a recipient taps a link inside the bundle whose destination is online, which is most URLs.

How many links can one bundle hold?

There is no hard limit in the file format. In practice we recommend keeping a bundle under 50 entries for fast on-device rendering and a clean view. Most useful bundles have 3 to 25 links.

Is the .qrb format open?

Yes. The format spec lives at github.com/ConstAgility/qrbundle. It is a versioned schema (currently qrbundle/1.0) with an explicit backward-compatibility guarantee — existing fields are not removed and unknown fields are ignored by readers. There is no proprietary binary and no DRM. The intent is that your bundles remain readable even if you stop using NxtTools or QRly.

Get NxtTools

QR Bundles runs entirely on your device — no signup, no SSO, no account. Install the app and you can build your first bundle in under a minute. The same install also gives you the rest of NxtTools' on-device toolkit (document scanner, image tools, signature pad) and a set of server-processed PDF tools that play a short reward ad per run, also without an account. (Sign-up exists but only unlocks customer support today.)

iPhone & iPad — App Store
Mac (Apple Silicon, M1 and up) — Mac App Store (same iPad app, installs natively as a desktop application; Intel Macs are not supported via this path)
Android — Google Play

If the bigger-than-links vision sounds like what you actually want, qrly.space is where that is heading.