Help & Documentation

1. Click + Add Folder in the top-right corner of the toolbar
2. Select a folder containing your photos and videos from the system file picker
3. The folder will appear in the Folders section of the left sidebar
4. Click on the folder to browse its contents in the media grid

CullVue monitors your watched folders in real-time. New photos appear instantly, deleted photos are removed, and folder changes are reflected automatically.

CullVue uses a two-panel layout:

• Left Sidebar — Contains three sections: Albums, Tags, and Folders. Click any item to view its contents.
• Media Grid — Displays thumbnails of your photos and videos with virtual scrolling that handles 50,000+ items smoothly.
• Toolbar — Top bar with media type filter, sort options, search, and settings.
• Status Bar — Bottom bar showing background task progress and app status.

Thumbnails load automatically as you scroll. The grid adjusts columns based on your window width.

• Hover over a thumbnail to see the filename and action buttons
• Click a thumbnail to open the full-size preview
• Right-click a thumbnail to open the context menu for quick tagging and album assignment

Click any thumbnail to open the full-resolution preview.

Videos open with a built-in player with playback controls.

The info bar at the bottom shows the filename, file size, and modification date.

View detailed camera and image information for any photo.

How to open: Click the i button on a thumbnail hover overlay.

The metadata panel slides in from the right and displays:

• File Info — Name, size, modification date, full path
• Dimensions — Image width and height in pixels
• Camera — Make, model, and lens
• Exposure — Aperture (f-stop), shutter speed, ISO, focal length
• Date Taken — Original capture date and time
• GPS — Location coordinates (if available)

The panel automatically updates when you navigate between images using the preview arrows.

Albums are virtual collections. Adding a photo to an album does not move or copy the file.

Tags let you label and categorize your photos across folders.

The built-in Star tag uses a star icon and cannot be deleted.

Select multiple photos to tag or organize them in bulk.

When multiple items are selected, a floating Batch Action Bar appears at the bottom:

• Tag — Apply or remove tags from all selected items
• Add to Album — Add all selected items to an existing or new album
• Clear — Deselect all items

Type in the search box in the toolbar to filter by filename. Search is case-insensitive.

Wildcard patterns supported:

Press Escape or click the x in the search box to clear the search.

Search your photos by describing what's in them using natural language.

Examples: "sunset at the beach", "cat on a couch", "birthday party", "red car"

How to use:

1. Click the brain icon in the search bar to switch to semantic mode
2. Type a description (3+ characters)
3. Results appear automatically after a brief pause, or press Enter for instant results

First-time setup required:

1. Click the index icon in the toolbar (appears in semantic mode)
2. Click Download Model to download the AI model (~400MB, one-time)
3. Click Start Indexing to analyze your photos

Indexing runs in the background and does not slow down your computer. Progress is shown in the status bar. You can use the app normally while indexing runs.

All AI processing happens entirely on your device. No photos are uploaded anywhere. Semantic search works completely offline.

Use the scope dropdown next to the search box:

• This Folder — Search only the currently selected folder
• All Folders — Search across all your watched folders

Click the sort dropdown in the toolbar:

Click the filter dropdown in the toolbar:

Click the filter icon next to the search box to expand advanced filters:

• Size Filter — Set minimum and maximum file size (presets: 100KB, 1MB, 5MB, 10MB, 50MB, 100MB)
• Date Filter — Set "after" and "before" dates to filter by modification date
• Clear All — Reset all advanced filters

CullVue automatically generates and caches thumbnails for all your photos and videos. Thumbnails are stored locally and regenerated automatically if the original file changes.

Video thumbnails are extracted from a frame at 10% of the video duration.

Progress is shown in the status bar when generation is active.

After downloading the AI model, CullVue indexes your photos in the background for semantic search. The status bar shows indexing progress including the current file being processed.

• Foreground indexing (from the indexing modal) processes images faster
• Background indexing runs at lower priority to keep the app responsive

When files are deleted from your watched folders, their AI index entries are automatically cleaned up.

CullVue checks for updates automatically. When an update is available, the status bar on the bottom-right will show:

You can dismiss any update notification by clicking the x button and update later.

To manually check for updates, use the Help > Check for Updates menu.

CullVue includes a 14-day free trial with full functionality. No credit card required. The remaining trial days are shown in the status bar.

1. Purchase a license from the CullVue website
2. When prompted (or via Settings > License), enter your license key
3. Click Activate

Your license is a one-time purchase with no recurring fees. It can be activated on multiple devices (the limit depends on your license type).

Open Settings (gear icon in toolbar) to view:

• License status (Active, Trial, Expired)
• Registered customer name
• Device activation count (e.g., "2 / 3 devices")

From settings you can:

• Validate Now — Re-verify your license online
• Deactivate This Device — Free up a device slot for use elsewhere

Click the gear icon in the top-right corner of the toolbar to open Settings.

• Enable anonymous diagnostics — Opt-in to send crash reports and basic usage data
• Only includes: operating system, CPU architecture, and app version
• No personal data, photos, or filenames are ever collected

When diagnostics are enabled, you can send feedback directly from the app:

1. Click Send Feedback in Settings
2. Choose a category: Bug Report, Suggestion, Complaint, or Other
3. Write your message
4. Optionally include your email for follow-up
5. Click Send Feedback

• 100% Local — All photos stay on your device. Nothing is uploaded.
• Offline AI — Semantic search runs entirely on your device using on-device machine learning.
• Encrypted License — License data is stored with AES-256-GCM encryption, tied to your device.
• No Tracking — No analytics or tracking by default. Crash reporting is opt-in only.
• No Cloud — No accounts, no sign-ups, no cloud dependency.

• macOS 12+, Windows 10+, or Ubuntu 22.04+
• 4 GB RAM
• 500 MB disk space (+ ~400MB for AI model on first download)
• Any modern CPU (2018+)

• Apple Silicon Mac (M1 or newer) for hardware-accelerated AI
• 8 GB RAM
• SSD storage
• 1 GB free disk space

• Ensure the folder is added to watched folders (click + Add Folder)
• Check that the files are in a supported format
• Try removing and re-adding the folder

• Thumbnails are generated in the background. Check the status bar for progress.
• For HEIC files, ensure the system has HEIC decoding support
• For video thumbnails, FFmpeg is used internally for frame extraction

• Ensure the AI model has been downloaded (click the index icon in semantic mode)
• Check that images have been indexed (status bar shows indexed count when idle)
• Try broader search terms. The similarity threshold is set to include fuzzy matches.
• Newly added photos need to be indexed before they appear in semantic search results

• CullVue uses virtual scrolling and should handle 50,000+ items smoothly
• If thumbnails load slowly, the background generation may still be running
• AI indexing runs at reduced priority to avoid impacting responsiveness