# Private photo storage: keep your pictures on your own PC

> Keep your photos private by keeping them at home: an offline library, on-device AI, no sign-in to use the app, and a phone link that never touches the internet.

Source: https://firelet.media/blog/private-photo-storage-on-your-pc
Published: 2026-09-11 · Updated: 2026-09-11
Applies to: Windows, macOS, Linux

Private photo storage means your pictures stay on hardware you own and the software that organises them never uploads them. firelet.media Gallery works that way. It indexes your folders where they are, runs its AI search, face grouping and text recognition on your PC, and talks to firelet.media only for licence and update checks. Your photos never leave your computer.

## What private photo storage should mean

"Private" gets used loosely. For photos, it's worth pinning down, because pictures carry so much: faces, children, homes, and the exact GPS position where each one was taken. A useful definition has five parts:

1. **The files live on your devices.** Not on a server you rent space on.
2. **The analysis happens locally.** Face grouping, search and text recognition run on your computer, not in a data centre.
3. **You know what goes out, and when.** There's always some traffic. It should be short, specific and documented.
4. **You control what you share.** Including the location hidden inside each photo.
5. **The hardware is protected.** Against loss, theft and failure, because private also means not lost.

Here's how each one works in practice.

## Your files stay in your folders

The gallery doesn't have a storage area of its own for your photos. You attach the folders you already use (**Library → Attach a folder**), and it reads them where they are. Nothing is copied into a hidden store, and nothing is uploaded.

It doesn't change them, either. Stars, albums, keywords, people, corrected dates and even edits are kept in the gallery's library file on your PC (`%LOCALAPPDATA%\PictureGallery\gallery.db`), not written into your pictures. Files only change when you rename, move or delete them yourself, or when you ask for XMP sidecar files. [Does firelet.media Gallery change my original photos?](https://firelet.media/help/are-original-files-changed) covers the details.

There's no sign-in to use the app. The 14-day trial needs no account and no email. If you buy, an account is created at firelet.media to hold your key and orders. It holds your email, name, key, orders, the names of your activated computers and any support tickets. It never holds photos.

## AI, faces and text recognition on your PC

Cloud photo services analyse your pictures on their servers. The gallery does the same work on your computer.

- **Description search** uses an AI model you download once (438 MB, from Hugging Face). It's checked against a pinned checksum, then runs locally. Your photos are compared with your words on your own PC.
- **Faces** use two small models (about 39 MB together), also downloaded once when you click **Download face models**. Finding and grouping faces runs on your PC, and the face data is stored in your library.
- **Text in photos** uses the text recognition built into Windows. Nothing is downloaded and nothing is sent.

![The People panel with Download face models, Find faces and Group unnamed, and its hint that faces are found on this PC](https://firelet.media/help/media/shot-people-panel.webp "Faces are found, grouped and named on your own computer")

The downloads bring models to your PC. They don't take anything from it. After that, everything works offline. [Is face recognition private?](https://firelet.media/blog/is-face-recognition-private) compares on-device and cloud face grouping in more detail.

## What the app sends (licence and update checks only)

Being honest about privacy means listing what does go out. Here's all of it.

| When | Where to | What is sent |
|---|---|---|
| Activating a licence | firelet.media | Your key, a salted-hash fingerprint of the machine, the app version and the computer's name, as a label you can rename in your account |
| Licence check-in, about every 30 days | firelet.media | Your key, the activation, the fingerprint and the version |
| Update check, at launch and every 24 hours | firelet.media | The version and platform, plus how far your updates run if you own a licence |
| Downloading the AI or face models, only when you click | Hugging Face | Nothing from your library: it's a download |
| Map background, only if you set up a tile provider | The provider you chose | Requests for the map areas you look at |
| Place names, only if you set up a service and press **Look up places** | The service you chose | Your photos' coordinates, rounded to cells of about 1 km |

The update check can't be switched off. It carries only the version and platform (and your updates window, if you own a licence), never anything from your library.

There's no telemetry, no analytics and no crash reporting. The gallery's logs stay on your PC. If you ever need help, **Copy diagnostics** in the About window copies a report to your clipboard for you to paste into a support message yourself. The full list is in [what firelet.media Gallery sends over the internet](https://firelet.media/help/what-data-is-sent).

The licence keeps working for 90 days without internet, so the gallery is happy on a PC that's offline most of the time.

### The phone link stays on your network

The Windows app includes the PC side of a Wi-Fi link to Android phones. The free Android companion is coming soon. Once paired, the phone and PC talk directly on your home network, encrypted with keys unique to each device. Nothing goes through the internet, and the companion never contacts firelet.media.

One setting deserves a look once you pair: **Let this phone move pictures on this computer to the Recycle Bin** is on by default. If you'd rather a phone could never remove anything from the PC, untick it in **Devices → Settings…** for that phone.

## Location data when you share

Your library can be completely private and still leak a secret the moment you share a photo. Most phone pictures carry the GPS position where they were taken. Send a photo taken in the garden and you may be sending your home address with it.

Export makes clean copies for sharing:

1. Select the photos in the grid.
2. Press [[Ctrl]]+[[E]] to open **Export**.
3. Choose the **Web — 1080 px JPEG, no location** preset, or set **Format** to **JPEG** and tick **Remove the location before sharing**.
4. Click **Choose…** to pick a folder for the copies.
5. Click **Export**.

> [!WARNING]
> **Original files, unchanged** copies each file exactly as it is, location included. To strip the location, export as JPEG with **Remove the location before sharing** ticked.

The originals keep their GPS data, so your own map still works. [How to remove location data from photos before you share them](https://firelet.media/blog/remove-location-from-photos-before-sharing) covers more cases, including which photos have a location at all.

## Physical security: backups and disk encryption

Keeping photos at home moves the responsibility home too. Two habits cover most risks.

**Back up.** firelet.media Gallery is not a backup, and a private library is only private until the drive fails. Keep three copies on two different devices, one of them somewhere else, and copy `gallery.db` along with the photos while the gallery is closed. [How to back up your photos and your library](https://firelet.media/help/back-up-photos-and-library) walks through it.

**Encrypt.** If a laptop or backup drive is lost or stolen, encryption keeps the photos on it unreadable. Use the drive encryption your operating system provides. On Windows that's BitLocker or Device encryption, depending on your edition. Encrypt external backup drives too, and use a strong sign-in password on the PC itself.

> [!TIP]
> Want the reasons behind all this in one place? Read [why an offline photo manager matters](https://firelet.media/blog/why-an-offline-photo-manager).

The Windows app is available now, and the macOS and Linux builds, which follow the same approach, are being finished.

## Questions

### Does firelet.media Gallery upload anything from my library?

No. Your photos, faces, searches, albums and ratings stay on your PC; the program contacts firelet.media only for licence and update checks.

### Are face groups private?

Yes. Faces are found and grouped on your computer, and the face data is stored in the library on your PC.