Privacy Policy

CullVue is a local-first desktop application for managing, browsing, and searching your photos and videos. We built it on a simple principle: your data belongs to you and should stay on your device.

This policy explains what minimal information CullVue and its website may collect, how it is used, and your rights regarding that information.

CullVue is designed to function with virtually no data collection. Here is the complete list of information we may receive:

License information

If you purchase a license, we store your license key and associate it with a customer name and email address for order fulfillment. License validation requests include your license key and a device identifier used to manage activation limits. No photos, filenames, or usage data are included in these requests.

Optional crash reports

CullVue includes an opt-in diagnostics feature that you can enable in Settings. If enabled, crash reports may include your operating system version, CPU architecture, and app version. No personal data, photos, filenames, or browsing behavior is ever included. This feature is disabled by default and requires your explicit consent to activate.

Optional feedback

When diagnostics are enabled, you can choose to send feedback from within the app. This only includes what you type (your message, category, and optionally your email for follow-up). No other data is attached.

Update checks

CullVue periodically checks for software updates. These requests include only the current app version and your operating system to determine if an update is available. No personal information is transmitted. Update checks can be dismissed, and updates are never installed without your action.

What we do NOT collect

• Your photos, videos, or any media files
• File names, folder paths, or directory structures
• EXIF metadata (camera info, GPS coordinates, timestamps)
• Tags, albums, or organizational data you create
• Search queries or AI search results
• Usage analytics, feature tracking, or behavioral data
• Browsing history or personal information

CullVue reads your photos directly from folders on your local file system. The app never copies, uploads, or transmits your photos anywhere. All processing happens on your device:

• Thumbnail generation happens locally and cached thumbnails are stored on your device
• EXIF metadata reading is performed locally and never leaves your machine
• AI embeddings are generated on-device and stored in a local database
• Albums, tags, and organizational data are stored in a local SQLite database on your computer

CullVue monitors your watched folders in real-time to keep your library up to date, but this monitoring is entirely local. No file data, metadata, or folder information is ever sent over the network.

CullVue's semantic search feature is powered by the MobileCLIP-S2 model, a lightweight vision-language model that runs entirely on your device. Here is how it works:

• The AI model is downloaded once (approximately 400MB) and stored locally on your machine
• When you index your photos, the model generates a numerical embedding (a vector of numbers) for each image. This process runs on your CPU or GPU locally.
• These embeddings are stored in a local database alongside your other library data
• When you search, your text query is converted to an embedding locally and compared against your photo embeddings locally
• No images, embeddings, or search queries are ever sent to any server

Semantic search works completely offline. Once the model is downloaded, you never need an internet connection to use it. There is no cloud-based AI processing, no API calls to external services, and no data shared with any third party.

The CullVue marketing website (this site) is a static website hosted on GitHub Pages. Here is what the website does and does not do:

What the website stores

• Theme preference — Your light/dark mode choice is saved to localStorage in your browser so the site remembers your preference. This data never leaves your browser.
• Form states — If you start filling out a form (such as the waitlist), your progress may be saved temporarily to localStorage for convenience. This data stays in your browser.

What the website does NOT do

• No cookies are set
• No analytics or tracking scripts are loaded
• No advertising networks or pixels are present
• No fingerprinting or cross-site tracking occurs

As a static site hosted on GitHub Pages, standard web server logs (IP address, user agent, requested URL) may be collected by GitHub as part of their hosting infrastructure. These logs are governed by GitHub's Privacy Statement.

CullVue uses a minimal set of third-party services:

• License validation — License keys are validated through a licensing service. Only your license key and a device identifier are transmitted. No photos or personal usage data are included.
• Update server — The app checks for available updates by contacting an update server with your current version and OS information.
• GitHub Pages — This website is hosted on GitHub Pages. Standard server-level logging may occur as described in GitHub's privacy policy.
• Google Fonts — This website loads typefaces (Inter and JetBrains Mono) from Google Fonts. Google may log requests as described in their privacy policy.

CullVue does not use any advertising networks, analytics services, data brokers, social media trackers, or any other third-party service that collects or monetizes your data.

Since CullVue is a local-first application, your data retention is entirely under your control:

• Your photo library, thumbnails, AI embeddings, tags, albums, and all organizational data are stored locally on your device
• Uninstalling the application removes the app and its local database. On macOS you can also remove the application support folder to delete all cached data.
• You can remove individual watched folders at any time, which clears their associated data from the local database
• No copies of your data exist on our servers because your data is never transmitted to us

If you have purchased a license, your license key and associated customer information (name, email) are retained by our licensing service for the purpose of order fulfillment and license management. You can contact us to request deletion of this information.

CullVue is not directed at children under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. Since CullVue does not require account creation and collects virtually no personal information, the risk of inadvertent collection is minimal.

If you believe that a child under 13 has provided us with personal information (for example, through a license purchase), please contact us at support@cullvue.com and we will take steps to delete that information.

We may update this privacy policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices or for legal and regulatory reasons. When we make changes:

• The "Last updated" date at the top of this page will be revised
• Significant changes will be announced through the app's update notes
• The current version of this policy will always be available on this page

We encourage you to review this policy periodically. Your continued use of CullVue after changes are posted constitutes your acceptance of the updated policy.

If you have any questions about this privacy policy or CullVue's privacy practices, you can reach us at:

support@cullvue.com

We are committed to resolving any concerns about your privacy and will respond to inquiries as promptly as possible.