iPhone first · local-first photo preservation

Photo
Luonnotar

A local vault beside Photos — built so a library change does not have to become the fate of the only copy.

iOS 27SwiftUIPhotoKitLocal only.alive

In active development · iOS is the main client.

Photo Luonnotar on iPhone showing Photos access, local vault state, background status, Rolling and Archive counts.
iOS status & vault

01 / iOS

Rolling first. Archive when it matters.

Photo Luonnotar observes the PhotoKit library, queues newly discovered assets and writes its own local copies. Rolling keeps the recent working set; Archive is the colder, persistent side for media that should stay.

The iPhone app is the centre of the project: status, policy, manual local passes, reconciliation and diagnostics all live here.

Photo Luonnotar on iPhone showing Rolling policy and local backup controls.
Rolling policy & local run controls
01

Rolling Vault

Recent media is kept by an OR policy: newest asset count or recent-day grace. The policy is adjustable from the iPhone.

02

Cold Archive

Archive is deliberately separate from the rolling window. A system-library deletion does not automatically become an instruction to remove the cold copy.

03

Live Photo / .alive

Photo and paired video resources stay together. Live Photos can be preserved in the project’s .alive container for later playback and recovery.

04

Reconcile

The vault can reconcile files against Photos again instead of trusting that both sides stayed perfectly aligned forever.

05

Background queue

Photo changes can queue a local pass for the background opportunities iOS provides; foreground runs remain an explicit fallback.

06

Files / Quick Look

The local vault is visible in Files, while .alive opening and preview integration continues to be tightened up.

02 / macOS

Menu-bar companion

The same vault, living quietly in the menu bar.

The Mac build is deliberately small: a status-bar app that exposes Rolling, Archive, Missing, errors, the connected vault, sync state and recent activity without demanding a permanent window.

It is the companion, not the headline. Photo Luonnotar is still designed around the iPhone experience first.

Photo Luonnotar macOS menu-bar status window showing Rolling, Archive, Missing, Errors, vault connection and recent activity.
macOS menu-bar build
Photo Luonnotar app icon

03 / icon

😂

Laughing at anyone who thought deleting my pictures would be enough.

That is the entire icon brief. Subtlety was not invited.