Local Lens

Web application for finding images in your local directories using natural language queries or reverse image search. Powered by vision embedding models (e.g., CLIP/SigLIP 2).

Features

• Index and update local image directories recursively using ChromaDB
• Perform targeted searches to retrieve relevant images or videos (text only, image only, text + image)
• Retrieve duplicate images
• Display search results in a gallery in order of confidence
• Web UI (Gradio)

Requirements

• Python 3.10+
• PyTorch (CPU, CUDA, ROCm)

Install

Portable Package (Recommended)

Download the standalone zip from the releases page: Portable Build

Supported Platforms:

Platform	GPU/Acceleration Support
Windows	NVIDIA (CUDA), AMD (ROCm), CPU
Linux	NVIDIA (CUDA), AMD (ROCm), CPU
macOS (Apple Silicon)	M-Series GPU (MPS), CPU
macOS (Intel)	CPU

Setup:

1. Extract the zip file
2. Run the setup script for your platform:
   • Windows: Double-click setup.bat
   • Linux/macOS: Run ./setup.sh in terminal
3. The setup wizard will:
   • Detect your GPU and install the appropriate PyTorch version
   • Install all required dependencies
   • Create a launcher script (start-webui.bat or start-webui.sh)

Requirements:

• Windows: Bundled Python/Git included; no additional requirements
• Linux/macOS: Python 3.10+ and Git must be installed on your system

Tip

In the event that you need to transfer to a fresh portable package:

• You can safely move the img_db directory to the new portable package
• You can likely also move the runtime directory over, assuming the same setup configuration is wanted

Manual install

1. Clone and enter the repo

git clone https://github.com/meangrinch/LocalLens.git
cd LocalLens

2. Create and activate a virtual environment (recommended)

python -m venv venv
# Windows PowerShell/CMD
.\venv\Scripts\activate
# Linux/macOS
source venv/bin/activate

3. Install PyTorch (see: PyTorch Install)

# Example (CUDA 12.8)
pip install torch==2.9.1+cu128 torchvision==0.24.1+cu128 --extra-index-url https://download.pytorch.org/whl/cu128
# Example (CPU)
pip install torch

4. Install dependencies

pip install -r requirements.txt

Usage

Web UI (Gradio)

1. Select a model (automatically downloads to hugging face cache ~/.cache/huggingface/hub)
2. Add image directories to your Chroma database (via the "Database Management" dropdown in the UI, or via CLI)
3. Enter your search query (e.g., "an orange and black butterfly") and/or upload an image (for reverse image search/combined text + image search)
4. The application will display the results in order of confidence
5. Update/sync indexed directories if necessary

Find duplicates

Click "Find Duplicates" in the UI with a specified indexed image directory to return similar matching images pairs.

Updating

Portable Package

• Windows: Run update.bat from the portable package root
• Linux/macOS: Run ./update.sh from the portable package root

Manual Install

From the repo root:

git pull
pip install -r requirements.txt  # Or activate venv first if present

License & credits

• License: Apache-2.0 (see LICENSE)
• Author: grinnch
• Inspired by Where's My Pic? by @Om-Alve