julyx10/lap

Lap – Private Local Photo Manager

What it is

• An open‑source desktop application for macOS, Windows and Linux that lets you browse, organise and edit your personal photo and video collections without sending anything to the cloud.
• It works directly on the folders you already have on disk (a folder‑first workflow) and stores all organisational data (tags, ratings, smart‑album rules, AI indexes, etc.) in a local SQLite database.

Why it matters

• Privacy‑first – No mandatory cloud account, no uploads. All AI‑powered features run locally on your machine.
• Local AI search – Uses on‑device models (CLIP for text‑image similarity, InsightFace for face clustering) via ONNX Runtime, enabling searches like “beach sunset” or “photos of Mom” without leaving your computer.
• Built for big libraries – Designed to stay responsive with 100 k+ files, offering fast thumbnail generation, duplicate detection, and bulk operations.

Key features

Category	Highlights
Browsing & organisation	Filter by date, folder, location, camera, lens, tags, ratings, faces; drag‑&‑drop import/export; multiple libraries; rule‑based Smart Albums
AI‑powered tools	Text‑prompt search, visual similarity, face clustering, multilingual tags (50+ languages) – all computed locally
Editing & creation	Crop, straighten, rotate, flip, resize, basic adjustments; collage builder (grid, mosaic, pile)
Media support	60+ formats including JPEG/PNG, HEIC/AVIF, 30+ RAW types, and common video containers; Live Photos & Motion Photos playback
Utilities	Duplicate finder with reclaimable‑space summary, four‑pane comparison viewer, map view for geotagged media, offline album browsing
Technical stack	Core: Tauri + Rust; UI: Vue + Vite + Tailwind + daisyUI; Data: SQLite; AI inference via ONNX Runtime (CLIP, InsightFace)

How to get it

• Pre‑built installers are provided for macOS (.dmg), Windows (.msi), and Linux (.deb and AppImage). Homebrew Cask is also available for macOS.
• The repository includes scripts to download the required AI models and an FFmpeg side‑car.

Building from source

• Requires Node 20+, pnpm, Rust stable, plus platform‑specific dev libraries (e.g., libwebkit2gtk, libheif).
• The build uses Tauri CLI (cargo tauri dev) after installing dependencies and pulling submodules.

License & privacy

• Released under GPL‑3.0‑or‑later.
• A privacy policy clarifies that no data leaves the device unless you explicitly use optional online services.

Bottom line Lap is a fully‑featured, privacy‑centric photo manager that brings modern AI search capabilities to a local‑only desktop app, making it a solid alternative to cloud‑based photo services for users who value control over their media.