Lumen
Details, one swipe up
Camera, lens, time zone, a map of where it was taken, and who is in it.
A gallery for Android
Your photos, smarter. And they never leave your phone.
Lumen finds a photo when you describe it, reads the text in your pictures, and groups the people in them. Google Photos does this on Google's servers. Lumen does it on your phone.
01Smart Search
Find any photo by describing it.
Type what you remember. Lumen looks at what is in each photo, not at its name, so a few words find the picture you mean.
"tennis"exact words, in photos and videosmai and danielphotos with both of themdjokovicfamous faces, no setup
- Model
- SigLIP 2, or CLIP on smaller phones
- Runs on
- Your phone's GPU
- Sends
- Nothing
02Live Text
Select the words in any photo.
Long-press a word, drag to select more, then copy, search or share it. Links, phone numbers and email addresses open with a tap. Pause a video and its text is selectable too.
The same text makes your screenshots, receipts and signs searchable. Put words in quotes to find an exact phrase.
- Model
- PP-OCRv6
- Reads
- While your phone charges, once
- Sends
- Nothing
03People
Everyone you know, found on your phone.
Lumen groups the faces in your photos and videos into people. Name someone once, and every photo of them is one tap or one search away.
Mai
Daniel
Ananya
Sofia
- Models
- YuNet and SFace
- Faces stored
- On your phone only
- Sends
- Nothing
04And the rest
Everything a gallery should do, without the cloud.
Film strip
Skim through everything with a strip of thumbnails under the photo.
Subtitles, made offline
Tap CC on a video to make subtitles. Copy them or save them as SRT.
Hidden and encrypted
Keep private photos behind a lock, encrypted on your storage.
Indexes while you sleep
Pick overnight hours, and Lumen does its work while the phone is idle.
Liquid Glass
Glass buttons and bars that bend the photo behind them. Turn it off any time.
05Privacy
No account. No Google. No cloud. Nothing leaves your phone.
Lumen does not use Google Play services, so it works on GrapheneOS, CalyxOS and phones without Google apps. It has no ads, no analytics and no tracking.
Lumen goes online for three things, each of which you can see and control. There are no others.
Goes online for3 things
huggingface.coSmart feature models, once, when you turn a feature on
tiles.openfreemap.orgMap tiles, when you open a map (can be turned off)
github.comUpdate check, once a day, and the update itself if you install it (can be turned off)
Your photos, faces and search index: never.
06The film
07Questions
Is it on F-Droid or Google Play?
Not yet. Lumen is on GitHub today, and it updates itself. F-Droid and IzzyOnDroid come first, then Google Play. See the roadmap.
Does it work on GrapheneOS and CalyxOS?
It should: Lumen does not need Google Play services or any Google app. It has not been tested on a Pixel yet. If the smart features cannot use the graphics chip there, they fall back to the processor, which is slower. Please report what you see.
How much space do the smart features take?
Each one is optional. All of them together are about 340 MB with the Fast search model, or 770 MB with the Accurate one. The app download itself is about 70 MB.
Will it drain my battery?
No. By default Lumen reads your library only while the phone charges, or in overnight hours you choose, and it stops when the phone gets warm. After the first time, it only reads new photos.
Does it change or move my photos?
No. Lumen shows the photos and videos already on your phone, in their folders. Favorites use Android's own favorite flag, so other gallery apps see them too.
Is there an iPhone version?
No. Lumen is made for Android.
How is it free?
Lumen is a personal open-source project under the Apache License 2.0. There are no ads, no paid tier and nothing to sell. It costs nothing to run because there is no server.
Can I use these features in my own app?
Yes. The search, text, face and subtitle engines are a separate library, Lumen AI, under the same license. It is at an early stage.
Get Lumen. It's free.
Download the APK from GitHub. Lumen updates itself, and every release is signed with the same key.