README

Lap - Private Local Photo Manager
  Open-source desktop photo manager for macOS, Windows, and Linux.
  
    
  
  
    
    
    
  


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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.

 Download Lap

Open the latest release page, then download the file that matches your system:

| Platform | Package | Note |
| :-- | :-- | :-- |
| macOS (Apple Silicon / Intel) | _aarch64.dmg / _x64.dmg | Notarized by Apple |
| Windows 10/11 (x64 / ARM64) | _x64_en-US.msi / _arm64_en-US.msi | Unsigned — if SmartScreen blocks the download, click Keep anyway |
| 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 |

 macOS with Homebrew

bash
brew tap julyx10/lap
brew install --cask lap


 Arch Linux (x86_64)

An experimental source-built Arch recipe is in contrib/aur. It has not been published to the AUR, so yay -S lap is not available yet. To build and install it locally on Arch Linux:

bash
cd contrib/aur
makepkg -s
sudo pacman -U lap-0.3.2-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst


The recipe pins an upstream source commit and checksums the bundled AI models and FFmpeg tools. The Arch build disables in-app self-updates so pacman remains responsible for upgrades; other platform builds keep their existing updater. See the recipe guide for build details and outstanding release checks.

 Screenshots


  
  
  


 Why Lap

- Local-first by design: your photos stay on your own disk, with no required cloud account or upload.
- No library lock-in: work directly with your existing folders instead of importing everything into a closed database.
- Private AI tools: search, similarity, smart tags, and face features run locally on your machine.
- Built for large collections: optimized for smooth browsing and organization across libraries with 100k+ files.
- Open source and free: no subscription, no forced ecosystem, and code you can inspect.

 Features

- 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.
- Local AI search for text prompts, visual similarity, subjects, face clustering, and optional multilingual search in 50+ languages.
- Smart Albums save rule-based views with custom grouping and sorting.
- Date-organized import with day, month, year, or single-folder layouts, original filenames, and duplicate skipping.
- Colle