Darkroom lets you import, organize, and edit your camera's RAW photos — entirely on your Mac. No account, no cloud, no subscription. Your original files are never modified and never leave your computer.
Grab the latest .dmg from the Releases page:
- Apple Silicon (M1–M4):
Darkroom_<version>_aarch64.dmg - Intel:
Darkroom_<version>_x64.dmg
Open the .dmg and drag Darkroom into your Applications folder. From 0.1.1 on, macOS builds
are signed with a Developer ID certificate and notarized by Apple, so they open with a normal
double-click — no xattr incantation.
A Windows installer (Darkroom_<version>_x64-setup.exe) is published too, but it is not code
signed yet, so SmartScreen shows "Windows protected your PC" — More info → Run anyway.
Darkroom keeps itself up to date — when a new version is released it prompts you, downloads it in the background, and restarts into the new version. No re-downloading.
- Import straight from an SD card — photos are auto-filed by capture date.
- Organize a large library fast: browse by date or folder, rate with stars, flag picks and rejects, add color labels and keywords, build collections, and search.
- Edit RAW files with a real-time editing pipeline — exposure, white balance, contrast, highlights & shadows, color, tone curve, HSL, detail & denoise, lens corrections, crop, and local masks (including AI subject selection). Every edit is non-destructive; your RAW stays untouched.
- Cull quickly with a keyboard-driven rating and flagging workflow.
- Find duplicates — identical files or different shots of the same frame — and clear them safely to the Trash.
- On-device AI (Apple Silicon): subject & scene detection, people & faces, automatic masking, and RAW denoise — all local, nothing uploaded.
- Export to JPEG or PNG, one photo or a whole batch.
- macOS 12 (Monterey) or newer
- Apple Silicon or Intel
The Intel build ships without the AI features (subject/face detection, denoise) due to a runtime limitation on Intel Macs. Everything else works on both.
Darkroom is fully offline. No account, no telemetry, no cloud services. Your photos and edits stay on your Mac.
For developers
Tauri v2 · Rust (Cargo workspace) · React 19 + Tailwind v4 · SQLite · wgpu/Metal develop pipeline.
npm install
npm run tauri dev # run the app
npm run tauri build -- --bundles dmg # build a .dmg
cargo test --workspace # run tests
cargo clippy --workspace # lintArchitecture, status, and the full spec live in CLAUDE.md, CURRENT_STATE.md, and SPEC_V1.md.