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ChivukulaVirinchi/photovault · source

Snapshot 0 · 2026-11-04T12:47:28Z · Rust · Apache-2.0

GitHub description at capture

Smriti — offline-first photo library for your drives. No server, no cloud. On-device face recognition, Google Photos Takeout import. Windows/macOS/Linux.

README at capture

<div align="center">
  <picture>
    <source media="(prefers-color-scheme: dark)" srcset="docs/smriti-logo-dark.svg">
    <img src="docs/smriti-logo.svg" alt="Smriti" width="180">
  </picture>

  <h2><em>Photos without a server.</em></h2>
  <p><em>स्मृति · Sanskrit for memory.</em></p>

  <p>
    Smriti indexes any drive, recognises faces on-device, and surfaces
    memories — without leaving your machine. No account, no cloud, no
    server humming in a closet.
  </p>

  <p>
    <a href="https://github.com/ChivukulaVirinchi/photovault/releases/latest">
      <img src="https://img.shields.io/github/v/release/ChivukulaVirinchi/photovault?display_name=tag&include_prereleases&label=release" alt="Release">
    </a>
    <a href="https://github.com/ChivukulaVirinchi/photovault/actions/workflows/ci.yml">
      <img src="https://img.shields.io/github/actions/workflow/status/ChivukulaVirinchi/photovault/ci.yml?branch=master&label=CI" alt="CI">
    </a>
    <a href="LICENSE">
      <img src="https://img.shields.io/badge/license-Apache--2.0-466996" alt="Apache 2.0">
    </a>
    <a href="https://github.com/ChivukulaVirinchi/photovault/releases/latest">
      <img src="https://img.shields.io/github/downloads/ChivukulaVirinchi/photovault/total?label=downloads&color=466996" alt="Downloads">
    </a>
    <a href="https://github.com/ChivukulaVirinchi/photovault/stargazers">
      <img src="https://img.shields.io/github/stars/ChivukulaVirinchi/photovault?style=flat&color=466996" alt="Stars">
    </a>
    <a href="https://ko-fi.com/L4L11ZM53F">
      <img src="https://ko-fi.com/img/githubbutton_sm.svg" alt="Support Smriti on Ko-fi">
    </a>
  </p>

  <p>
    Featured on <a href="https://linuxunplugged.com/684"><strong>LINUX Unplugged #684</strong> — You Ain’t Ready For This Jelly</a> · September 13, 2026.
  </p>

  <a href="https://chivukulavirinchi.github.io/photovault/">
    <img src="website/featured.webp" alt="A tour of Smriti: the timeline, a photo, search, people, a collage, a memory, the map and an album" width="820">
  </a>

  <p>
    <a href="https://github.com/ChivukulaVirinchi/photovault/releases/latest"><strong>Download</strong></a>
    &nbsp;·&nbsp;
    <a href="https://chivukulavirinchi.github.io/photovault/">Website</a>
    &nbsp;·&nbsp;
    <a href="https://chivukulavirinchi.github.io/photovault/docs/">Manual</a>
    &nbsp;·&nbsp;
    <a href="https://github.com/ChivukulaVirinchi/photovault/discussions">Discussions</a>
    &nbsp;·&nbsp;
    <a href="https://ko-fi.com/L4L11ZM53F">Support</a>
  </p>
</div>

---

## Why Smriti exists

Most photo apps want to be a **service**. They want a login, a sync daemon,
a monthly fee, a server you maintain. They want your photos to be content
they process — endlessly, in the background, on a machine that runs all
year so you can check in twice.

Smriti is none of that. Open the app, browse, close it. Your library is
*finished work*, not a stream that needs draining. When the app is closed,
nothing runs. When the app is open, the photos are already where they were —
on your drive, in their folders, exactly as you left them.

## What you do with it

| | |
|---|---|
| **Bring 200,000 photos in.** Point Smriti at a folder or drive. It indexes in place — never copies, never moves your originals. | **Name a face once.** On-device face recognition groups every photo of that person across your whole library. No cloud round-trip. |
| **See where you've actually been.** Every geotagged photo plotted on a map. Click a cluster to drill into a place. Tile cache lives on your drive. | **Find that photo of grandma in 2018.** Unified search across people, albums, places, dates. Three filters, one result. Milliseconds on 250K libraries. |
| **Get reminded, not pestered.** "This day, N years ago" and a few collages made from your photos, waiting when you open the app. Never a notification. | **Cull the obvious junk.** Exact duplicates and bursts, side by side. Keep the best, trash the rest — Trash, not delete, so you can restore if you change your mind. |

## See it

<table>
  <tr>
    <td width="33%"><a href="https://chivukulavirinchi.github.io/photovault/"><img src="website/shot-timeline.jpg" alt="Smriti timeline view"></a></td>
    <td width="33%"><a href="https://chivukulavirinchi.github.io/photovault/"><img src="website/shot-people.jpg" alt="Smriti people view"></a></td>
    <td width="33%"><a href="https://chivukulavirinchi.github.io/photovault/"><img src="website/shot-map.jpg" alt="Smriti map view"></a></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td align="center"><sub><strong>Timeline</strong><br>20+ years of photos, sticky year headers, viewport-driven thumbs.</sub></td>
    <td align="center"><sub><strong>People</strong><br>On-device face clustering. Name a face once.</sub></td>
    <td align="center"><sub><strong>Map</strong><br>Every geotagged photo plotted. Click a cluster to drill in.</sub></td>
  </tr>
</table>

## How it compares

|  | Cloud (Google · iCloud) | Self-hosted (Immich · PhotoPrism) | **Smriti** |
|---|---|---|---|
| Photos live | On their servers | On your server | **On the drive they came from** |
| Original quality preserved | Compressed by default (Google's "Storage saver" caps at 16 MP) | Preserved | **Preserved — files are never opened for write** |
| Account required | Yes | Yes (you set one up) | **None** |
| Server to maintain | Theirs (you pay rent) | Yours, 24 / 7 | **None — it's an app** |
| Metadata (faces, tags, albums) | In their database | In your server's database | **On the drive with the photos** |
| Survives provider going away | No | Only if your server keeps running | **Yes — it's files** |
| Yearly attention you owe it | Renew subscription | Updates · certs · backups | **None** |
| Cost over five years | $250 – $750 | NAS + power + your time | **$0** |
| Works on a plane | Limited | Limited (no VPN) | **Everything** |
| Memory footprint when closed | n/a | ~1 – 4 GB resident | **Zero** |

> Smriti writes its database at `<drive>/.photovault/photovault.db` — on the
> same drive as the photos. Unplug the drive, plug it into another computer,
> open Smriti there: same library, same faces, same albums. No sync, no
> upload, no re-indexing.

## Install

The **[Smriti website](https://chivukulavirinchi.github.io/photovault/#download)** detects your operating system and downloads the normal installer directly. Advanced package choices and checksums remain on the [latest release page](https://github.com/ChivukulaVirinchi/photovault/releases/latest).

### Windows

- `.exe` installer (recommended) or `.msi` package — Windows 10 / 11, x64.
- iPhone (HEIC) photos are supported out of the box.

> Smriti does not have a code-signing certificate yet. On the first install,
> Windows may show **Windows protected your PC**: click **More info** →
> **Run anyway**, then approve **Install anyway** or the UAC prompt if shown.
> Finish the installer and launch Smriti from the Start menu. Download only
> from this website/GitHub; `SHA256SUMS` is published with every release.

### macOS

- `.dmg` for **Apple Silicon only** (no Intel build yet).

> Smriti is not notarized. Gatekeeper may warn on first launch — try to open
> the app, then allow it under **System Settings → Privacy & Security →
> "Open Anyway"**.

### Linux

- `.deb` for Debian / Ubuntu, `.rpm` for Fedora, `.AppImage` for any other distro (`chmod +x` then run). x64 only.

Every release publishes a `SHA256SUMS` file covering all artifacts. Tagged
releases run build and package checks in CI before publishing.

### Optional smart features

After opening your first library, choose **Enable smart features** in the
one-time dialog, or **Later** to keep browsing without another startup prompt.
Setup shows the download size and runs in the background. People, visual
search, and offline place names start automatically when ready. You can also
enable just one feature in People, Search, Map, or Settings. Downloads are
one-time; photos are processed locally and the rest of the app works without them.

### Automatic updates

Opt-in. Off by default. If enabled, Smriti queries `api.github.com` at most
once every 24 hours. No photo data leaves your machine. See
[PRIVACY.md](PRIVACY.md) for the full disclosure.

If Smriti detects it was installed through a package manager (`apt`, `brew`,
`winget`, `flatpak`, `scoop`, `snap`, Microsoft Store), the update banner shows
the matching upgrade command rather than self-replacing the binary.

> Only GitHub release artifacts are published today — there are no distro
> packages yet, so a normally installed copy will self-update.

<details>
<summary><strong>Build from source</strong></summary>

```bash
git clone https://github.com/ChivukulaVirinchi/photovault.git
cd photovault
npm ci --prefix src-ui
./scripts/dev.sh            # Linux / macOS
# .\scripts\dev.ps1         # Windows PowerShell
```

#### HEIC support (optional)

iPhone photos are HEIC. To decode them from a source build, install
`libheif` and rebuild with the `heic` feature:

```bash
# Linux (Debian/Ubuntu)
sudo apt-get install libheif-dev

# macOS
brew install libheif

# then build a production bundle
cd src-tauri
cargo tauri build --features heic
```

Shipped binaries on every platform include HEIC support out of the box
(Windows builds link a decode-only libheif from vcpkg:
`vcpkg install "libheif[core]:x64-windows-static-md"`, then build with
`VCPKG_ROOT` set and `VCPKGRS_TRIPLET=x64-windows-static-md`). Without HEIC enabled, Smriti still
indexes `.heic` files but reports a clear "HEIC support not compiled in"
error when asked to decode one.

#### Local assets

```bash
./scripts/setup_assets.sh      # Linux / macOS
.\scripts\setup_assets.ps1     # Windows
```

See [`docs/BUILD.md`](docs/BUILD.md) for full setup details including the
WSL + Windows development workflow.

#### Packaging helpers

```bash
./scripts/release_local.sh ubuntu
./scripts/release_local.sh linux-appimage
./scripts/release_local.sh assets-pack
./scripts/release_local.sh verify
```

Windows end-to-end local verification:

```powershell
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File scripts\release_local.ps1 -Mode full
```

The official release flow is CI-driven from git tags (`v*`) via
[`.github/workflows/release.yml`](.github/workflows/release.yml).

</details>

## Privacy at a glance

Smriti makes **six kinds of HTTP request, and you can turn off every one that
is not a direct response to something you clicked**. Nothing else leaves your
machine — ever. No telemetry, no analytics, no "anonymous usage statistics."

1. **Map tiles** when you open the Map view (`tile.openstreetmap.org`). Cached locally.
2. **Asset pack download** (`github.com/.../releases`, ~285 MB), one-time, opt-in.
3. **Visual-search models** (`huggingface.co/immich-app/...`, ~1.5 GB), part of the
   same opt-in smart-features setup. Text and photo vectors are computed on your
   machine; only the model files are downloaded.
4. **Update check** (`api.github.com`), opt-in — **off by default**.
5. **Update install** (`github.com/.../releases/download/...`), only when you click Download.
6. **Optional remote inference** — the GPU face-embedding bridge and the
   provider-backed assistant, both off unless you configure an endpoint or a
   provider key. These send photo-derived data (face crops) or conversation and
   library context to a service *you* choose.

Full disclosure, request by request: [PRIVACY.md](PRIVACY.md).

## Documentation

Full user guide and contributor docs are published at
**[chivukulavirinchi.github.io/photovault](https://chivukulavirinchi.github.io/photovault/)**.

- [Getting Started](https://chivukulavirinchi.github.io/photovault/docs/user-guide/getting-started.html)
- [Indexing Photos](https://chivukulavirinchi.github.io/photovault/docs/user-guide/indexing.html)
- [People and Faces](https://chivukulavirinchi.github.io/photovault/docs/user-guide/people.html)
- [Build Guide](docs/BUILD.md)
- [Architecture Overview](docs/architecture/overview.md)
- [API Reference (rustdoc)](https://chivukulavirinchi.github.io/photovault/api/)

## Community

- **[GitHub Discussions](https://github.com/ChivukulaVirinchi/photovault/discussions)** — questions, feature ideas, show-and-tell.
- **[Issues](https://github.com/ChivukulaVirinchi/photovault/issues)** — bug reports and feature requests, via the templates.
- **[CONTRIBUTING.md](CONTRIBUTING.md)** — dev setup, commit style, CI gates, architectural rules.
- **[Security advisories](https://github.com/ChivukulaVirinchi/photovault/security/advisories/new)** — private reporting path for vulnerabilities (see [SECURITY.md](SECURITY.md)).

## Support

Smriti is free and Apache-2.0 licensed. If it's useful to you, a
small contribution helps keep it maintained:

[![Sponsor on GitHub](https://img.shields.io/badge/sponsor-on%20GitHub-466996?style=flat)](https://github.com/sponsors/ChivukulaVirinchi)
&nbsp;
[![ko-fi](https://ko-fi.com/img/githubbutton_sm.svg)](https://ko-fi.com/L4L11ZM53F)

> **Note on models.** The face detection + recognition models come from
> [InsightFace](https://github.com/deepinsight/insightface). They are not
> bundled in the installer: the opt-in one-click setup fetches
> `Smriti-Assets.zip` (models, ONNX Runtime and the GeoNames database) from
> this project's own GitHub releases, and the optional visual-search models
> from the [`immich-app`](https://huggingface.co/immich-app) repository on
> Hugging Face. See [THIRD_PARTY_LICENSES.md](THIRD_PARTY_LICENSES.md) for
> attributions.

## Built with

- [Rust](https://www.rust-lang.org/) — the engine: services, DB, ML, indexing
- [Tauri 2](https://tauri.app/) — native desktop shell (Linux / Windows / macOS)
- [Svelte 5](https://svelte.dev/) + [Vite](https://vitejs.dev/) — frontend
- [SQLite](https://sqlite.org/) — embedded per-drive database
- [ONNX Runtime](https://onnxruntime.ai/) — on-device face detection + recognition
- [MapLibre GL](https://maplibre.org/) — interactive map view
- [GeoNames](https://www.geonames.org/) — offline reverse geocoding
- [OpenStreetMap](https://www.openstreetmap.org/) — map tiles

## License

[Apache License 2.0](LICENSE). See
[THIRD_PARTY_LICENSES.md](THIRD_PARTY_LICENSES.md) for the full
third-party attribution list.