Every question, answered.

Live Gallery treats the folders you add as read-only. It does not create, modify, rename, move or delete files inside your source folders. It writes only its own index, thumbnails and cached crops under the app-data folder.

No. You point it at folders that already exist; the app indexes them in place. There is no import queue and no second copy of the archive. A terabyte of photos does not become two terabytes.

Yes. The library is read and indexed on your PC. The photo app contains no network code, does not upload photos, and does not require an account. The separate installer and updater handle downloads and updates.

No. It reads the files. The app does not rewrite pixels, rotate the original, write XMP/IPTC, or remove files from your folders. Removing a folder from the app removes its catalogue entries, not the folder on disk.

Under the app-data folder, not inside your photo folders. The catalogue is a standard SQLite database; thumbnails and face crops sit beside it. Your source folders stay exactly as they were.

No. Live Gallery uses SQLite, a standard local database file. The schema is specific to Live Gallery, so another photo app will not read its edits, but the file itself is not a proprietary server database.

No. It is a library manager. Your originals stay in the folders your backup already covers, but you still need an independent backup. The app is not a substitute for one.

No account, no cloud library, no upload path. The local beta is free; planned paid licences are one-time purchases, not subscriptions.

Yes. The People page shows named, suggested and unknown people. Open a person to see their photos, or use the People view as the face browse surface.

Yes. The Tags page groups user tags and system tags with counts. Open a tag to see the matching photos, then combine it with a folder or date filter.

Yes, where the photo carries GPS. Locations groups photos by country, region and city using offline reverse geocoding. A photo with no GPS is not guessed from its pixels.

Not yet. Free-text search is coming. The current find surface is browsing by face, tag or location, with folder and date filters.

Not in this release. Object recognition and content-aware search are coming. They are not part of Beta 2.

No. Detection and grouping run locally. There is no cloud face database and no face upload.

Yes, where that metadata is present. The reader understands Windows keywords, XMP subjects, IPTC keywords, WLPG face regions and Picasa .picasa.ini sidecars. It does not invent metadata that was never written.

Yes. The People page is the correction surface: review the suggested people, rename them and merge fragments. Grouping is a suggestion, not identity verification.

No, and metadata write-back will not be supported. The source folders are read-only; new tags, ratings and descriptions stay in the local SQLite database. Export is a separate coming-soon tool.

Not yet. The export tool is coming soon. It is planned to export all or a portion of the library, filter duplicates as it goes, organise by year or year/month, resize or crop to a maximum such as 1080p, choose a format or target file size, and embed metadata in the exported copies.

No. Export writes new copies to a folder you choose. Metadata write-back into the original files will not be supported.

Windows keywords, XMP dc:subject, IPTC keywords, xmp:Rating, EXIF capture dates, camera details and GPS, plus WLPG face regions and Picasa sidecars where present.

Ratings run from one to five stars. Ctrl+R cycles the rating on the selected photo, and the Rated facet narrows the gallery to the rated set. Ratings are stored in the local database; they are not written back to the file.

The app has no separate Album entity or album page yet. Picasa album names are imported as tags, so the organisation is not lost; it is represented differently.

It is an optional content-hash scan. Exact duplicates use a SHA-256 hash; a perceptual hash can surface visually similar copies. It is off by default, and matches are shown for review before removal.

Both are supported by the optional scan: exact content hashes and perceptual near-duplicates. A perceptual match is a suggestion, not proof that two files are interchangeable.

Yes. Timeline groups photos by date and year; slideshow offers Fade, Zoom, Polaroid and Polaroid Table. Both are views over the local library.

Yes. All 76 supported formats are included on every tier. The difference between tiers is the image cap, not the format list.

76 image extensions: 30 camera RAW, 24 everyday and modern formats, and 22 archival or technical formats. The full list is on the supported-formats page.

The free public beta is capped at 5,000 images. Home is planned at 100,000 images for $49. Home 1M is planned at 1,000,000 images for $99. Paid licences are not on sale yet.

No. The planned paid licences are one-time purchases. The beta is free. Bug and security fixes are free; optional future feature upgrades are a separate purchase.

No. PDF is not in the current 76-extension table. The old “PDF supported” note was stale.

Windows 11. Live Gallery is a desktop app, not a web app or a mobile app.

The separate installer and updater handle downloads and updates. The photo app itself contains no network code and does not open connections during normal library use.

Yes. Point the beta at a small, curated folder first. The source is read-only, but keep your normal backup in place regardless.

Yes. Beta feedback is read by the person building the product and shapes what gets fixed next. Include the steps that reproduce a bug if you can.