Lutri
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What happens on your phone

What Lutri does with your photos.

Private search only means something if you can see how it works. This page follows a search from start to finish: what Lutri reads, what it keeps, what runs where, and the short list of things that go online.

  • ReadsYour photos, videos and audio, only where you allow it. A file moves only when you choose Delete.
  • KeepsOne private index inside the app on your phone, kept out of iCloud and Google backups.
  • Never sendsYour photos, videos, audio, transcripts, searches or index. Not to us, and not to anyone else.
  1. Reading

    It reads your library, and acts on a file only when you ask.

    With your permission, Lutri reads the photos and videos in your library: the pictures, the frames and the audio tracks, and details such as the date, the size and the album. You choose how much it sees. Allow your whole library, or only the photos you pick.

    Lutri edits no photo or video. Share hands a file to the app you pick, Open with hands it to another app on your phone, and Delete asks your phone to move it to the trash after you confirm. Lutri does not use the GPS coordinates in your photos, look up addresses or ask for your live location.

  2. Understanding

    Four small jobs run on your phone.

    Each picture, video and voice memo goes through the jobs below, on the phone’s own processor. Nothing in this step needs a server.

    The jobs Lutri runs on your phone
    JobDone byProducesDownload
    Understanding picturesEmbeddingGemma 2, an open model from Google DeepMind, run on the phone by Google AI EdgeNumerical fingerprints of pictures, video frames and text, so a search can match meaning and not only wordsOptional download of about 388 MB
    Reading textGoogle ML Kit on Android, Apple’s Vision framework on iPhoneThe words printed or typed in a pictureNone. Part of the phone’s software or the app
    Hearing speechWhisper Tiny, run by whisper.cppThe first 15 seconds of speech in each video or voice memo, as textNone. Bundled in the app
    Reading file detailsThe phone’s media libraryFile names, dates, albums and sizesNone

    The software and models behind these jobs, and their licenses, are listed in the open-source notices.

  3. Remembering

    The result is one private index.

    To make search fast, Lutri builds an index in the app’s private storage. It contains:

    • words it reads in your pictures, and spoken words from videos and voice memos
    • short descriptions of what each picture or video shows
    • numerical fingerprints of pictures, video frames and text
    • file names, dates, albums and similar details, plus small preview pictures the app makes for itself
    • the searches you choose to save, and automatic collections such as Receipts and Screenshots

    Other apps cannot read it. It is not sent anywhere, and it is kept out of the phone’s automatic backups, so it is not copied to iCloud or to Google. Lutri does not keep a history of what you type into search. Clear search index in Settings, or uninstalling Lutri, deletes it.

  4. Searching

    A search compares your words with that index.

    When you type, Lutri turns your words into a fingerprint on the phone and compares it with the fingerprints in the index. At the same time it looks for your exact words in file names, in text found in pictures and in speech. The two are combined to rank the results, and each result says why it matched.

    Because the index and the comparison are both on the phone, search works with no connection, and there is no server that could record what you looked for.

  5. Going online

    A few things go online. Your library is not one of them.

    Lutri connects to the internet only in these situations:

    The visual model
    Downloaded once from Hugging Face, and only if you ask for it. The app checks the file against a fixed checksum and rejects it if it does not match.
    Plan options and purchases
    The App Store or Google Play takes payment. RevenueCat confirms your plan using the purchase receipt and a random installation ID, plus standard technical details such as an IP address.
    Optional sign-in
    If you create a purchase account, Google Firebase Authentication receives your email address and sign-in details, so one purchase can unlock Full Access on more than one device. Your library is never part of it.
    Optional usage analytics
    Off by default. If you allow it, Google Analytics for Firebase receives fixed screen and step names with rounded counts. Never photos, searches or file names.
    What you choose to send
    An email to support, text you copy or share, or a photo, video or recording you share. It goes where you send it, and nowhere else.

    Read the full Privacy Policy

  6. Checking

    You can check this yourself.

    1. Switch on airplane mode and search. Text, file-name and spoken-word searches keep working, and so do scene searches once the visual model is installed.
    2. Open Settings and tap Clear search index. Everything Lutri learned from your library disappears. Every photo and video stays exactly where it was.
    3. Turn off photo access in your phone’s settings. Lutri stops reading anything new.
  7. Limits

    What it does not do well, stated upfront.

    • Results, recognized text and speech are approximate. Lutri can miss a photo, misread a receipt total or mishear a word, so check the original before acting on a number.
    • Lutri cannot tell people apart across photos. Search by what is in the picture, not by who is in it.
    • A first pass over a large library takes hours. By default Lutri works in batches, while charging, and you can search while it works.
    • Media that exists only in the cloud has to be downloaded to the phone before Lutri can read it.

    Lutri is an independent app and is not affiliated with Apple, Google, Hugging Face or RevenueCat.

Search that stays on your phone.

Free to start. No account needed. Your photos stay on your phone.

Coming soon to iPhone and Android.