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LyAhn 23095a6d05 docs: add installation, privacy, changelog, and 0.1.0 release notes

Phase 6 release collateral:
- README: Installation (unsigned-build/SmartScreen note, requirements,
  first-run downloads) and Privacy & local-first sections
- CHANGELOG.md seeded with the 0.1.0 feature set
- docs/release-notes-0.1.0.md draft for the GitHub Release body

Also corrects the CLIP model download size from ~330 MB to ~580 MB (the
actual model.safetensors is 577 MB) across the docs and the onboarding UI.

2026-06-13 10:34:15 +01:00

2.2 KiB

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Phokus v0.1.0

Draft for the GitHub Release body. Paste into the release, fill in the checksum, and trim as needed.

Phokus is a local-first desktop media library for Windows — point it at your image and video folders and it builds a fast, searchable gallery with thumbnails, semantic search, visual discovery, AI tagging, and duplicate cleanup. Everything is processed on your machine; nothing is uploaded.

This is the first public release. Expect rough edges, and please file issues.

Install

Download Phokus_0.1.0_x64-setup.exe below.
Run it. Windows SmartScreen will warn that the publisher is unrecognized — this build is not code-signed (cost; signing is on the roadmap). Click More info → Run anyway to proceed.
Requires Windows 10/11. The installer fetches the WebView2 runtime automatically if needed.

On first launch, Phokus runs a short guided tour and downloads FFmpeg in the background (one-time, ~tens of MB). AI tagging (~1.3 GB) is optional; the CLIP model for semantic search (~580 MB) downloads automatically the first time embeddings run. All of this stays on your machine.

Highlights

Virtualized gallery for very large libraries; favorites, ratings, filters, sorts
Filename, semantic (/s), and tag (/t) search
Similar-image search, Explore clusters + tag cloud, EXIF Timeline
Lightbox with zoom/pan and a custom video player
Optional on-device AI tagging (WD tagger)
Exact-duplicate finder with bulk delete
Built-in updater

See the changelog for the full list.

Privacy

Your media and all derived data (thumbnails, embeddings, tags, ratings) never leave your machine. No account, no telemetry, no cloud. The only network activity is the one-time tool/model downloads above and update checks against this Releases page.

Known limitations

Unsigned installer — SmartScreen warning as described above.
Windows only for now.
CPU/DirectML inference in the shipped build; very large libraries take time to embed on first index.

Verify your download (optional)

SHA-256 (Phokus_0.1.0_x64-setup.exe) = <fill in at publish time>

2.2 KiB Raw Blame History