Privacy policy

Pixal is a desktop photo manager made by Nouman, an independent developer (“we” and “us” in this policy). The policy covers the Pixal app for Windows, whether you install it from this website or from the Microsoft Store, and this website, pixal.caspx.in.

Questions about it are welcome at info@caspx.in.

Pixal is designed so that your library never needs a server. We don’t run one for it, and we have no way to see your photos, your library or how you use the app.

What Pixal keeps on your computer

• The folders you add, and an index of the photos and videos in them: dates, camera details, file information, and GPS coordinates read from the files.
• Thumbnails, and the results of analysis done on your computer: face groups, search data, text found in photos, and duplicate matches.
• Everything you add yourself: albums, favourites, names you give people, edits, captions, corrected dates and locations, and your local profile (a display name and picture).
• Your settings, and a local error log.

All of it lives in Pixal’s data folder in your Windows user profile (Settings → About shows where). Your original files are never moved, renamed or changed. Albums and edits are references in the index, and Pixal writes to your photo folders only when you export or save a copy.

Face grouping

To group photos by person, Pixal finds faces and turns each one into a numeric description, on your computer. Because these describe people’s faces, we treat them strictly: they are created and stored only in Pixal’s local index, never uploaded and never shared, and used for nothing except grouping your own photos. People’s names are only ever what you type. You can turn this off with Group faces into people in Settings → Indexing.

When the app goes online

Pixal has no telemetry, analytics, advertising or crash reporting. It connects to the internet only for the reasons below, and none of these requests contain your photos or anything else from your library. As with any download, each server sees your IP address and basic request details, which it handles under its own privacy policy.

Map tilesOpenFreeMap, OpenStreetMap or Esri

While you look at the Places map, from the provider of the map style you picked. The provider can tell which part of the world you are viewing. Turn off online maps in Settings → Privacy and Pixal uses its built-in offline map instead.

Pythonpython.org

Once, during first-run setup, and only if Python 3.10 or newer isn’t already installed. The download is checked against a fixed checksum before it runs.

Pixal’s componentsPython Package Index (pypi.org)

During first-run setup, and when you install an optional feature from Settings → Models.

Face recognition modelGitHub

Once, in the background after setup (about 39 MB) and checked against a fixed checksum. You can turn this off in Settings → Models.

Optional modelsTheir publishers, such as Hugging Face and GitHub

Only when you choose to install visual search, text-in-photo search or location guessing.

Update checkGitHub (api.github.com)

Off by default. If you turn it on in Settings → Privacy, or press Check now, Pixal asks GitHub for the latest version number. Nothing is downloaded or installed by itself.

Links in the app, such as Report a bug, open in your web browser, where the website part of this policy applies.

Sharing on Wi-Fi

When you share photos with a phone, Pixal serves the ones you picked from your computer over your own network, behind a private link, until the time you set runs out or you stop sharing. Nothing is uploaded to the internet.

If you install from the Microsoft Store

Microsoft handles the download, installation and updates, under the Microsoft Privacy Statement. Microsoft gives developers summary reports, such as install counts and, if your Windows diagnostic settings allow it, crash reports that Windows collects. These come from Windows, not from Pixal, and we use them only to find and fix problems.

This website sets no cookies and shows no advertising. Its fonts and images are served from the site itself, so reading it doesn’t make your browser contact Google Fonts or image hosts.

• Visit counts and page speed. The site uses Vercel Web Analytics and Vercel Speed Insights to count visits and measure how quickly pages load. They record anonymous details with each page view: the page, the site that linked to it, your approximate location (country, region and city), your browser, operating system and type of device, and load timings. Neither uses cookies or stores your IP address, and neither can follow you to other websites. To count a visitor only once a day, Vercel works out a hash from the request, and discards it after 24 hours. How Vercel handles this.
• Light or dark mode. If you switch themes, the choice is saved in your browser’s local storage so the site remembers it. It never leaves your browser.
• Hosting. The site is hosted by Vercel. Like any web host, Vercel processes what your browser sends to load a page, such as your IP address, browser type and the page requested, to serve the site and protect it from abuse. We don’t use this to identify or follow visitors.
• Downloads. Download buttons send you to the installer on GitHub, where Pixal’s releases are published, so GitHub sees that request under the GitHub Privacy Statement. The version list, changelog, download count and star count are fetched from GitHub by our server, not your browser.

The bug report form asks for a title and a description, and optionally your email address so we can reply. When Pixal opens the form for you, it also fills in the app version and your operating system. Each report is filed as an issue in a private GitHub repository that only the developer can see, so it can be tracked until it’s fixed.

To stop the form being flooded, the server briefly keeps the IP address a report came from in memory, to count recent reports. It is never written to storage.

If you email us, we receive your address and whatever you write. Reports and emails are used only to answer you and to improve Pixal. Please don’t send photos unless we ask for one to reproduce a problem.

• In the app: everything stays on your computer until you delete it. Removing a folder from Pixal removes what was indexed from it, faces and thumbnails included, without touching the photos. Uninstalling removes the app; to remove the rest of the index too, delete Pixal’s data folder.
• Bug reports: kept while they help fix Pixal. Ask, and we’ll delete yours.
• Emails: kept in the developer’s mailbox while the conversation is relevant, and deleted on request.

We don’t sell, rent or trade personal information, and we don’t share it for advertising. The only other services involved are the ones that run the website and receive reports: Vercel (hosting and anonymous visit statistics) and GitHub (releases and bug reports). We would disclose information only if the law required it.

Wherever you live, you can ask what information we hold about you, and ask us to correct or delete it. In practice that is at most a bug report or an email. Write to info@caspx.in and we’ll answer within 30 days.

We process reports and emails because you sent them and asked for a reply. If you are in the European Union, the United Kingdom or somewhere with similar law, you can also complain to your data protection authority.

Pixal isn’t aimed at children under 13, or the minimum age where you live, and we don’t knowingly collect personal information from them. The app itself collects none from anyone. If you think a child has sent us information, tell us and we’ll delete it.

Pixal’s processing service listens only on your own computer and needs a secret that changes every launch, so other software and web pages can’t reach your library. Python and the face recognition model are checked against fixed checksums before they’re used. Pixal doesn’t encrypt its index; your computer’s disk encryption protects it, as it does your photos.

Found a vulnerability? Please report it privately, as our security policy describes.

If this policy changes, the new version will be posted here with a new date at the top. If a change affects what the app sends anywhere, the release notes will say so too.