Local-first & private
Sync your library freely across – the path they travel is entirely up to you.
Your library backs up to the cloud storage of your choice – always encrypted by Photosphere before upload. No one else can read your photos.
End-to-end encrypted
Open source – App Available now
Your photos.
Under your
control.
The photo management app you always wanted – like Google Photos, but your library never leaves your control. Secure, private, and open source.
Private by design
Syncs across devices
Your storage, your choice
Blazing fast
Open source
Built for Speed
& Security.
Everything a modern photo manager should be – with none of the surveillance.
Smart search
Find any photo instantly by date or location. Whether it's a holiday from three years ago or a specific city, your library is always one search away.
Blazing fast scrolling
Advanced rendering tricks let you fly through thousands of photos instantly – no lag, no stutter. Perfect for large libraries with tens of thousands of shots.
Corruption-resistant
Your library is protected against corruption and accidental data loss. Photosphere automatically detects damaged or missing files and repairs them, keeping every memory intact.
Fully open source
MIT licensed and 100% transparent. Inspect every line, contribute features, or fork the project. Built in the open, for everyone.
Share on your terms
Your photos stay private by default. When you're ready, choose exactly which photos or albums to share – safely and securely with family and friends, without ever losing control of the rest.
Your storage, your rules
Choose any storage you trust – Photosphere encrypts everything end-to-end before it leaves your device. The key never leaves you, so no one else can access your photos.
Any Cloud
AWS S3, Google Drive,
Dropbox & more
Dropbox & more
Local Drive
Internal or
external HDD/SSD
external HDD/SSD
NAS
Network attached
storage at home
storage at home
One library.
Every device.
Add a photo on your laptop and it's there on your desktop – your full library, always in sync, through cloud storage you choose and trust.
Laptop
Your cloud
encrypted
Desktop & phone
Always in sync
Your library stays consistent across every device – no manual transfers, no duplicates.
Encrypted in transit
Photos are encrypted by Photosphere before they reach your cloud storage – only you hold the key.
Your provider, your choice
Use any cloud storage you already trust. Switch providers any time – no lock-in.
See it in action
Browse 100,000 real photos – live in your browser. No install required.
Start now!
Ready in minutes
No accounts. No setup fee. Just your photos.
1
Install in seconds
No account, no sign-up, no credit card. Pick your platform and you're up and running in under a minute.
2
Point to your photos
Open Photosphere and select your existing photo folder. No migration, no reformatting – your files stay exactly where they are.
3
Browse & enjoy
Your entire library, instantly searchable by date and location. Fast, private, and completely yours.
Latest nightly build · Windows & macOS
Windows
64-bit installer
macOS
Apple Silicon (M1 / M2 / M3 / M4)
macOS
Intel (x86-64)
Nightly build · View all releases on GitHub
For developers & power users
Your instance,
Your instance,
your rules.
Full source access. Run it your way – self-hosted, customized, and completely under your control.
Self-hosted
Fully customizable
MIT licensed
Zero vendor lock-in
terminal
# Clone the repo
$ git clone https://github.com/ashleydavis/photosphere
$ cd photosphere
# Install & run
$ bun install
$ bun run dev
✓ Photosphere is ready.
Under the hood
Photosphere is built on a small set of powerful ideas borrowed from distributed version control – designed for large, immutable binary files.
Git for photos
Photosphere's database is modelled after Git – a content-addressed, append-only structure built for large immutable binary files. Every version of every photo is tracked without duplication, and nothing is ever silently overwritten.
Merkle tree integrity
Every photo gets a unique cryptographic fingerprint. These are combined up into a single root hash for the whole library – the same technique used by Git and Bitcoin. If even one file changes unexpectedly, the discrepancy is detected instantly.
CLI & scripting
The GUI is built on top of a fully capable CLI. Script imports, exports, integrity checks, and database operations directly – ideal for automation, backups, and integrating Photosphere into your own tooling.
Available everywhere
Windows & macOS apps available – mobile is on the way.
Desktop App
Native app for Windows, macOS, and Linux – powered by Electron.
Available – NightlyMobile
iOS and Android apps for managing your photos on the go.
Coming SoonCLI Tool
Powerful command-line interface for managing and browsing your library.
Available – v0.0.7
Built in the open.
For everyone.
Photosphere is MIT licensed. Read the code, report bugs, suggest features, or contribute directly. Your photos deserve software you can trust – and trust requires transparency.
Frequently asked questions
Everything you need to know about Photosphere.
-
Yes. Photosphere is local-first — your library lives on your own hardware. There is no Photosphere server that holds your files, no subscription that could be cancelled, and no company that can lock you out. You decide where your photos are stored and who (if anyone) has access.
-
Photosphere is fully open source. Every line of code is publicly available on GitHub. You (or anyone you trust) can audit exactly what the application does with your files — no black boxes, no hidden telemetry.
-
Data sovereignty means your files are subject to your rules, not someone else's terms of service. With Photosphere you choose the storage location — a local drive, a NAS, or a cloud provider in your preferred jurisdiction — so you remain in full control of where your data lives and who can access it.
-
Photosphere builds a corruption-resistant database of your media files and can automatically detect and repair corrupt files. It also keeps a continuously-updated backup, so a hardware failure doesn't mean a permanent loss. Your memories stay safe even when hardware doesn't.
-
Yes. Photosphere encrypts your files end-to-end before they leave your device. The encryption key never leaves your control, which means your cloud storage provider — whether that's AWS, Backblaze, Wasabi, or any other — cannot read your photos even if they wanted to.
-
Photosphere is a full photo management app. The desktop GUI lets you search, view, and edit your photos and videos — not just store them. Think of it as a private, self-hosted alternative to Google Photos or iCloud, with all your data staying on your own infrastructure.
Still have questions? The wiki has detailed guides and documentation.
Browse the wikiLatest updates
Shipped regularly. No fluff — just the features and fixes that matter.
-
Parallel media imports and database health checks
Parallel worker threads speed up bulk media ingestion. Automated orphaned file removal, cross-platform config standardisation, and improved
repairandverifycommands with structured exit codes. -
CLI v0.0.7 — directional sync and write locking
New
psi synccommand for one-way directional sync. Faster diff algorithm for replication. Database write lock prevents corruption during concurrent access. Database format upgraded to version 4. -
CLI v0.0.6 — legacy CPU support via baseline Bun
Switches to the Bun baseline build so
psiruns reliably on older processors on Linux and Windows — no modern CPU instruction sets required. -
CLI v0.0.5 — read-only mode and hash caching
Adds read-only mode for safe browsing without writes. Hash cache is now integrated into the Merkle tree file. Database versioning enforced with upgrade prompts and improved encryption key handling.
-
CLI v0.0.4 — ZIP scanning and animated GIF thumbnails
Scans inside ZIP archives for media files. Generates thumbnails for animated GIFs. Image transformation via ImageMagick, verbose output with
--tools, and zero-byte file validation.
Roadmap
Here's what we're building and when you can expect it.
Shipped
v0.8
Q3 2025
Core
Timeline view
Browse every photo by date in a fast, virtualized grid. Zero lag even on 50 k+ libraries.
Core
Local-first storage
Your photos stay on your disk. No cloud account required — ever.
In progress
v0.9
Q2 2026
AI
Android Companion
Release of our app for the Android eco system.
Sync
Multi-destination sync
Mirror your library to NAS, external drives, and S3-compatible storage simultaneously with conflict resolution.
Planned
v1.0
Q3 2026
Sharing
Shared albums with E2E encryption
Share a curated album with a link. Contents are encrypted; only recipients with the key can view them.
Later
v1.1
Q4 2026
Editing
Non-destructive RAW editing
Exposure, colour grading, curves, and lens corrections. Edits stored as sidecar files; originals untouched.
Media
Video library support
MP4, MOV, and HEVC in the same timeline as your photos. Hardware-accelerated scrubbing on Apple Silicon and NVIDIA GPUs.
Horizon
v2.0
2027
AI
AI-powered memories
Auto-generated "On this day" and travel recap slideshows, composed and narrated locally with no data leaving the device.
Sharing
Family vaults
Shared encrypted library accessible by up to 10 family members across devices. Each member controls their own encryption keys.
Dates are targets, not promises. Keep an eye on our github page for updates.
Featured book
The Feedback‑Driven
Developer
by Ashley Davis
Photosphere is the real-world case study built from scratch throughout the book — every technique shown in production code. Drawn from 30 years of software engineering experience, it's a practical guide to shipping quality software faster through continuous feedback.
- Iterative development loops powered by tests, clients, and self-assessment
- Prototyping, refactoring, and automation for full-stack applications
- Stakeholder-driven feature prioritisation and debugging in production
"It's akin to having a rare and exceptional mentor, a consummate professional with astounding technical expertise guiding me through every phase." — Parth Sigdel, Full Stack DeveloperGet early access