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Ashley Davis edited this page Jun 14, 2026 · 20 revisions

Photosphere is a cross-platform application for managing your database of digital media files (photos and videos). I like to think of it as the spiritual successor to Picasa but with a UI more like modern Google Photos and backed by a Git-style database for immutable binary files like photos and videos that have editable metadata.

Important features:

  • Local first so you own it and you control it.
  • Open source so you can understand what it does with your files.
  • Maintain data sovereignty: the storage and privacy of your files are under your control.
  • Build a corruption resistant database of your digital media files.
  • Backup your database and keep your backup updated.
  • Detect and repair corrupt files.
  • Securely encrypt files that you store in the cloud vendor or your choice.
  • Use the GUI to search, view and edit your photos and videos.

Photosphere is a local-first application available as:

  • A CLI tool (build and manage databases from the command line) - grab it from the releases page.
  • A desktop application app for Windows, macOS, and Linux - grab it from the releases page.
  • A mobile application (Android and iOS apps - COMING SOON).

Note: The self-hosted server option has been discontinued for now, but may be reinstated later if there's demand for it.

Early development of Photosphere was covered in the book The Feedback-Driven Developer.

Quick Links

Dependencies

Photosphere depends on the following software:

  • ImageMagick - for image processing and manipulation
  • FFmpeg - for video processing and encoding

See Required-Tools for installation instructions.

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