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Lap is an open-source, local-first photo manager for browsing family albums, finding old photos quickly, and managing large personal media libraries offline. It is a privacy-focused alternative to cloud photo services: no forced upload, local AI search, folder-first workflow, and free to use.
This fork builds on julyx10/lap, with thanks to its original author and contributors. It adds richer search, media understanding, model management, and recoverable media workflows.
Open the latest release page, then download the file that matches your system:
| Platform | Package | Note |
|---|---|---|
| macOS (Apple Silicon / Intel) | _aarch64.dmg / _x64.dmg |
Signing and notarization vary by release |
| Windows 10/11 (x64 / ARM64) | _x64_en-US.msi / _arm64_en-US.msi |
Unsigned — if SmartScreen blocks the download, click Keep anyway |
| Windows portable (x64 / ARM64) | _x64_portable.zip / _arm64_portable.zip |
Extract the entire ZIP and run Lap.exe; WebView2 Runtime is required |
| Linux (x64 / ARM64) | _amd64.deb / _arm64.deb |
For Debian-based distros (Ubuntu, Debian, Linux Mint, etc.) |
| Linux (x64 / ARM64) | _amd64.AppImage / _aarch64.AppImage |
Make the file executable, then double-click to run |
Windows portable ZIPs include the native DLLs, Visual C++ runtime and bundled resources. Settings, libraries and caches still use Lap's normal per-user data directories. To update a portable copy, quit Lap and extract the new ZIP into a new folder; the built-in Windows updater uses the MSI installer.
Apple signing and notarization are optional in this fork's release workflow. A successful build does not imply notarization; only assume it when the release explicitly confirms it.
This tap installs the upstream app. For the features described in this fork, use the release downloads above.
brew tap julyx10/lap
brew install --cask lapReal screenshots of the current Windows app, using the English interface and a sample photo library. Click an image to view it at full size. Sample media and capture notes.
Home — featured photos, library statistics, and an expandable year/month timeline.
Combined filters — preview nested AND/OR conditions and save useful searches as Smart Albums.
Smart Albums — organize dynamic, rule-based collections in virtual folders.
Media chat — compare two photos as cover candidates with a user-configured OpenAI-compatible service.
Local object recognition — inspect real RF-DETR detections and manually correct the results.
Local OCR — search recognized photo text, inspect highlighted regions, and copy or correct the results.
AMap 3D — rotate and tilt the native map while browsing geotagged photos within the current filters.
AMap satellite — switch to satellite imagery and keep the same photo markers. Map services require an internet connection and your own credentials.
- Local-first by design: browse and organize your own photo folders without a cloud account.
- No library lock-in: work directly with your existing folders instead of importing everything into a closed database.
- Your choice of AI: run semantic search, OCR, object and face recognition locally, or explicitly configure online services for additional capabilities.
- Built for large collections: paged browsing, grouped views, and viewport-first thumbnail loading keep work focused on the photos you are viewing.
- Open source and free: no subscription, no forced ecosystem, and code you can inspect.
- Home dashboard with featured photos, library statistics, a year/month timeline, and memories from this day in previous years.
- Flexible library browsing by date, folder, location, camera, lens, tags, ratings, and faces, with sorting and search.
- Folder-first workflow with multiple libraries, drag-&-drop import/export, copy-paste import/export, filesystem sync, and safe move/copy/delete operations.
- Smart Albums with nested rules, virtual folders, grouping, sorting, and manual inclusion/exclusion.
- Titles, collections, and tags to organize files without moving or duplicating the originals; titles are separate from filenames.
- Date-organized import with day, month, year, or single-folder layouts, original filenames, and duplicate skipping.
- Traceable scans with file/preview/search preparation stages, folder reports, history, safe pause/continue, and targeted retries of recorded file errors.
- Everyday controls with a toolbar that expands actions as space allows, draggable sidebar order, in-window settings, box selection, keyboard shortcuts, and unsaved-edit protection.
- Offline albums and broad media support: cached browsing on disconnected storage, 60+ photo/RAW/video formats, Live/Motion Photo playback, and linked RAW + JPEG/HEIC pairs. RAW previews can use embedded or rendered images with optional brightness adjustment.
- Combined filters search existing metadata, people, objects, and image text with nested AND/OR conditions, previews, and optional saving as a Smart Album.
- Local semantic search for text prompts, visual similarity, subjects, and optional multilingual search in 50+ languages, depending on the selected model.
- Local OCR with text search, highlighted regions, line-by-line copy, temporary region extraction, manual corrections, and optional idle-time incremental recognition.
- Local object and face recognition with detection overlays, manual review/corrections, and object category/count filters. Recognition tasks queue separately by type; selected-photo requests take priority between photos, and completed results are retained.
- Natural-language image/video retrieval using separate analysis-text or original-frame Embedding indexes, scoped by model and album. Video hits can jump to the matching sampled segment; sampling does not cover every frame or identify exact event boundaries.
- Optional media chat through your own OpenAI-compatible generation service: reference photos/video samples, stream replies, search through enabled tools, and review editable title, description, and tag suggestions before applying them.
Local recognition works on your machine. Configured online generation/Embedding services receive the relevant text or processed media when you authorize those actions and may charge for usage. Retrieval needs the corresponding index; configuring a service does not automatically upload or analyze your library. See media understanding and retrieval and OCR.
- Duplicate cleanup with reclaimable-space summaries and bulk removal across duplicate sets.
- Culling and comparison tools including a four-pane image comparison viewer.
- Built-in editing for crop, arbitrary-angle straighten, rotate, flip, resize, and basic image adjustments.
- Photo Collage to compose selected photos into grid, justified-mosaic, or picture-pile layouts.
- Hidden and Recently Deleted views with an optional application lock. Ordinary deletion defaults to recoverable storage; linked files stay together. Restore preflight offers the original location, conflict-safe group renaming, or another registered folder, without overwriting existing files. The lock does not encrypt files.
- Background media operations with progress, safe stop, and retries of unfinished work. Stopping preserves completed groups rather than undoing them; interrupted recovery keeps its saved plan.
- Verified manual backups of library databases, recovery manifests, and settings, with checksums and restore validation. Backups exclude original photos/videos, trash media, model/runtime files, and credential-store API keys; back up the media disks separately. See recovery and backup.
- Multiple map providers: native AMap and Tencent SDKs, OSM/Esri, Tianditu, MapTiler, Mapbox, and custom XYZ/WMTS. Photo markers and clusters follow the current filters; AMap supports native 3D/satellite views with rotation and tilt. These use the providers' own SDKs; Cesium is not integrated.
- Independent place resolution: choose map display separately from offline GeoNames or supported online reverse geocoding. Browse hierarchical places and continue/retry batch resolution; original WGS84 GPS is preserved. Maps need network access, and online providers may need keys and quota. See map and place services.
- Model management with on-demand downloads, checksum verification, compatible manifest import, per-model parameters, and execution diagnostics. Local backends include CPU, Windows DirectML, macOS CoreML, and an optional Windows x64 CUDA component. Automatic mode tries available acceleration and reports fallback; explicit device failures remain visible. Model/driver compatibility varies. See CUDA setup.
Lap is folder-first, but not every piece of information shown in Lap is embedded in the original file. This distinction matters when you also manage the same folders in Finder, Explorer, or another photo app.
- Your original photos and videos always remain ordinary files in their existing folders.
- File metadata already embedded in a file, such as EXIF capture date, camera, lens, GPS, and orientation, is read from that file when Lap indexes it.
- Saving a built-in image edit writes the resulting image to the selected destination.
- When you rename, move, copy, or delete files in Lap, Lap updates its local catalog at the same time. It also keeps supported grouped assets, such as Apple Live Photo components, AAE sidecars, and enabled RAW + JPEG/HEIC pairs, together.
The following are Lap library data. They are stored in Lap's local database or library configuration, not written into EXIF, IPTC, or XMP sidecars:
- Titles, Collections, Tags, Comments, Favorites, Ratings, and Culling states (including Picks and Rejects)
- Smart Albums and their rules, grouping, sorting, and ordering
- AI search data, face data, thumbnails, and other index/cache data
This data does not travel with a file when it is copied, exported, or moved outside Lap, and it is not available automatically to other applications.
Lap can rescan folders and detect many filesystem changes. But changes made outside Lap—such as renaming, moving, replacing, or copying files—can disrupt organization that is stored only in Lap.
For the most reliable results, rename and move files in Lap whenever you rely on titles, Collections, Tags, Comments, Favorites, Ratings, or culling states. If you also manage files outside Lap, back up Lap's database and configuration together with your photos. You can manage the database location and create a backup in Settings → Advanced → Library data maintenance.
Deleting Lap's database or configuration removes this local organization and index data, but does not delete your original media files.
Lap works directly with your existing photo folders. Uninstalling Lap, or deleting its database and cache files, does not delete your original photos.
The standard uninstall steps remove the application. To remove Lap completely, quit Lap first, uninstall the application, then delete its local database, thumbnail cache, and configuration files using the cleanup command for your platform.
If you installed Lap with Homebrew:
brew uninstall --cask lapFor a manual installation, quit Lap and move Lap.app from the Applications folder to the Trash.
To remove all Lap database, cache, and configuration files:
rm -rf "$HOME/Library/Application Support/com.julyx10.lap" \
"$HOME/Library/Caches/com.julyx10.lap" \
"$HOME/Library/WebKit/com.julyx10.lap"
rm -f "$HOME/Library/Preferences/com.julyx10.lap.plist"Open Settings > Apps > Installed apps, find Lap, and select Uninstall.
Then open PowerShell and remove all Lap database, cache, and configuration files:
Remove-Item -Recurse -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\com.julyx10.lap"
Remove-Item -Recurse -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue "$env:APPDATA\com.julyx10.lap"For DEB installations, uninstall the package:
sudo apt remove lapFor AppImage installations, quit Lap and delete the downloaded .AppImage file.
Then remove all Lap database, cache, and configuration files:
rm -rf "$HOME/.local/share/com.julyx10.lap" \
"$HOME/.cache/com.julyx10.lap" \
"$HOME/.config/com.julyx10.lap"If you selected a custom database storage directory in Lap settings, delete that directory separately after confirming that it contains only Lap database files.
Requirements: Node.js 20+, pnpm, Rust stable.
# macOS system deps
xcode-select --install
brew install nasm pkg-config autoconf automake libtool cmake
# Linux system deps
# sudo apt install libwebkit2gtk-4.1-dev libappindicator3-dev librsvg2-dev \
# patchelf libdbus-1-dev nasm clang pkg-config autoconf automake libtool cmake
# Clone and build
git clone --recursive https://github.com/pedoc/lap.git
cd lap
git submodule update --init --recursive
cargo install tauri-cli --version "^2.0.0" --locked
cd src-vite && pnpm install && cd ..
cargo tauri devAfter launch, download and configure models in Settings → AI models and FFmpeg in Settings → Network. Configure optional LLM/Embedding connections in AI models → Media understanding; consent and capability checks apply to the actions you use. See media services, CUDA setup, and the model developer guide. Frontend tests require Node.js 22+.
Distribution packages can link against the system libheif (1.17 or newer) instead of the bundled libheif and libde265. Set LAP_SYSTEM_LIBHEIF=1 for the build. The submodules third_party/libheif and third_party/libde265 are then not needed. HEVC decoding depends on the codec plugins of the system libheif.
Lap supports 60+ photo, RAW, and video formats.
| Type | Formats |
|---|---|
| Images | JPG/JPEG/JFIF, PNG, GIF, BMP, TIFF, WebP, HEIC/HEIF/HIF, AVIF, JXL, PSD, EXR, HDR/RGBE, TGA, JPEG 2000 (JP2/J2K/J2C/JPC/JPF/JPX), DDS, DPX, QOI |
| RAW photos | CR2, CR3, CRW, NEF, NRW, ARW, SRF, SR2, RAF, RW2, ORF, PEF, DNG, SRW, RWL, MRW, 3FR, MOS, DCR, KDC, ERF, MEF, RAW, MDC |
| Videos | MP4, MOV, M4V, MKV, AVI, FLV, TS/M2TS, WMV, WebM, 3GP/3G2, F4V, VOB, MPG/MPEG, ASF, DIVX and more. H.264 playback is supported on all platforms, with automatic compatibility processing when native playback is unavailable. HEVC/H.265 and VP9 are natively supported on macOS. |
Lap uses system GStreamer plugins for video playback, including in the AppImage. If videos fail to play on Ubuntu, Debian, or Linux Mint, install:
sudo apt install gstreamer1.0-libav gstreamer1.0-plugins-good- Core: Tauri + Rust
- Frontend: Vue + Vite + Tailwind CSS
- Data: SQLite
| Library | Purpose |
|---|---|
| LibRaw | RAW image decoding and thumbnail extraction |
| libheif | HEIC/HEIF/HIF image decoding and preview generation |
| libjpeg-turbo | Fast JPEG decoding and thumbnail generation |
| FFmpeg | Video processing and thumbnail generation |
| Video.js | Cross-platform video playback UI |
| ONNX Runtime | Local AI model inference engine |
| CLIP | Image-text similarity search |
| InsightFace | Face detection and recognition |
| Leaflet | Raster-map rendering for geotagged photos; AMap/Tencent use their native SDKs |
| daisyUI | UI component library |
GPL-3.0-or-later. See LICENSE.
Read the Privacy Policy for details on data handling and optional online services.