The photo management app you always wanted, like Google Photos, but your library never leaves your control. Secure, private, and open source.
No accounts. No setup fee. Just add your photos.
No account, no sign-up, no credit card. Pick your platform and you're up and running in under a minute.
Open Photosphere, select and import your existing photo folder. Photosphere creates its own database and leaves your originals exactly where they are.
Your entire library, instantly searchable by date and location. Fast, private, and completely yours.
Windows
64-bit installer
macOS
Apple Silicon (M1 / M2 / M3 / M4)
macOS
Intel (x86-64)
Linux
Debian / Ubuntu (amd64)
Everything a modern photo manager should be, with none of the surveillance.
Encryption ensures no "man in the middle" attack can gain access to your photos.
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.
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.
Your library is protected against corruption and accidental data loss. Photosphere detects damaged or missing files and repairs them, keeping every memory intact.
MIT licensed and 100% transparent. Inspect every line, report bugs, suggest features, or contribute directly. Built in the open, for everyone.
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 media library backs up to cloud storage of your choice. Photosphere encrypts before your files leave your device. The encryption key never leaves your control, so no one else can access your photos, even if your cloud storage is compromised.
Add a photo on one device and it syncs automatically to your other devices. Your full library, always in sync, through cloud storage you choose and trust. Encrypted to ensure no one else can see your photos, ever.
Laptop
Your cloud
encrypted
Desktop & phone
Your library stays consistent across every device, no manual transfers, no duplicates.
Photos are encrypted by Photosphere before they reach your cloud storage, only you hold the encryption key.
Use any cloud storage you already trust. Switch providers any time, no lock-in.
Browse 100,000 real photos, live in your browser. No install required.
Full source access. Run it your way: self-hosted, customized, and completely under your control.
Photosphere is built on a small set of powerful ideas borrowed from distributed version control, designed for large, immutable binary files.
Photosphere's database is modelled after Git, a content-addressed, append-only structure built for large immutable binary files. Once a photo or video is added it is never changed or overwritten, so your originals stay exactly as they were, forever.
Every photo gets a unique cryptographic fingerprint. These are combined up into a single root hash for the whole library. If even one file changes unexpectedly, the discrepancy is detected instantly.
The GUI is supported by a fully capable CLI tool. Automate imports, exports, backups, and integrity checks, or integrate Photosphere into your own scripts and tooling.
Everything you need to know about Photosphere.
Yes. Photosphere is local-first: your library lives on your own hardware or a storage vendor of your choice. 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 can also automatically update a 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 an app to manage your media library (photos and videos). The desktop GUI lets you search, view, and organise your photos and videos, not just store them. You can also edit the metadata of your media. It cannot yet edit the contents of photos or videos, though that may be added in the future. Think of it as a private, self-hosted alternative to Google Photos or iCloud, with all your data staying on infrastructure you control or choose.
Still have questions? The wiki has detailed guides and documentation.
Browse the wikiHere's what we're building and when you can expect it.
by Ashley Davis
Photosphere is the real-world case study used in this book.
Drawn from 30 years of software engineering experience, it's a practical guide to shipping quality software quickly, powered by continuous feedback.
"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
