Frequently asked questions

No. Everything runs on your own PC. The app goes online in exactly three situations: activation, the periodic licence check-in (subscription only, at least every 45 days, fully automatic), and payment (handled by Creem). See the privacy policy.

No. Unzip the download and double-click FaceNest.exe. No admin rights, nothing written to the registry.

Windows 10 / 11 (64-bit) — verified on Windows 11 24H2. macOS is in beta: it needs macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later on Apple Silicon (M1 or newer); Intel Macs are out because upstream PyTorch has stopped publishing Intel-macOS wheels. The macOS beta is downloadable from the download page — expect the unsigned-app warning on first launch. Linux: not yet — we will not claim support before we have tested it.

Yes — English and Chinese, switchable on the settings page with immediate effect and no restart.

The first time you use one of the larger optional models it has to download (a few hundred MB up to about 2 GB), and the first semantic index build takes a while too (there is a progress bar, and face and tag search keep working meanwhile). How long depends on your hardware — we do not promise a number.

No. It runs without a discrete GPU; semantic search is just noticeably slower. With an NVIDIA card, GPU acceleration is enabled automatically and is roughly an order of magnitude faster (measured 17.8x).

No. The free tier does not restrict the runtime — if you have an NVIDIA card, it uses the GPU. The free tier has exactly two limits: 100 photos and 20 semantic searches.

Yes. The backend is picked automatically: CUDA on an NVIDIA card, DirectML on other Windows GPUs, and CoreML / MPS on Apple Silicon (CoreML for tagging and face detection, MPS for semantic search). With no GPU at all it still works, just slower. How much it helps depends on the card and the driver.

The download is about 6 GB; after unpacking it takes about 10 GB, including the models that ship with the app, plus up to roughly 4 GB for the larger optional models. Thumbnails and the index grow with your library.

Yes. The settings page has a power-saving mode that pins tagging to the integrated GPU, leaving the discrete GPU free for everything else.

No. FaceNest only deletes its own thumbnails and index rows; your original photos and videos are never modified. Export only ever writes copies.

Only on your own computer — nothing is uploaded. Windows: the data/ folder inside the folder you unzipped into (portable — move the whole folder and your library comes with it). macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/FaceNest/ (together with models/ and logs/); exports default to ~/Pictures/FaceNest. To back up, copy that folder. See the privacy policy.

Email support@facenest.net with your payment email or licence key and we will delete the corresponding activation records on our side. See the privacy policy.

A library of 100 photos and 20 semantic searches. Face search, tag search and album browsing are unlimited.

The benefits are identical (unlimited library, unlimited semantic search). Yearly is $50 (≈ $4.17/month); monthly is $6. If you plan to keep it, yearly is better value.

Credit card, Apple Pay and Google Pay, processed by Creem, which also handles regional taxes. Alipay and WeChat Pay are not supported.

Creem emails it to the address you used at checkout. Paste it into "Settings → Licence & quota" — see activation help.

2. To move to a new machine, click "Unbind this PC" on the old one first, then activate on the new one. You can self-unbind once every 90 days.

Yes — Creem charges automatically and your benefits roll over. The app reminds you before expiry, and even if you miss it there is a 14-day grace period. Paying customers do not get silently downgraded.

No. There is a 14-day grace period; when it ends you simply drop back to the free tier (library capped at 100 photos, semantic search off). Your existing photos, faces, tags and albums remain searchable — not a single file is deleted.

Payment and refunds are both handled by Creem (the Merchant of Record): you can request a refund within 60 days of payment.

Cancelling is self-service: log in to the Creem customer portal with your payment email and go to "Manage Subscription" → "Cancel Subscription". Cancelling only stops future charges — the period you already paid for keeps working to its end.

Please talk to us first (support@facenest.net) — filing a chargeback adds fees and takes far longer. See the refund and cancellation policy.

Not often, but occasionally: at least every 45 days the app connects once to complete a licence check-in. It is fully automatic — as long as the computer can reach the internet, the app does it in the background. You do nothing. About 8 times a year.

Why it exists: the licence is verified offline, so a periodic check-in is the only way we can tell the correct licence status when you switch computers, renew or request a refund. For reference, Adobe Creative Cloud validates every 30 days and GraphPad Prism every 30 days — our 45 days is more generous than both.

What happens if you stay offline: the app warns you in advance. If 45 days pass without a check-in, Pro features are paused and restored automatically once you are online — your photos and index are never deleted, and you do not have to buy anything again.

What is sent: only the licence key, the machine identifier and the app version — not your photos, files, paths or search history. See the privacy policy.

No. That is a button you have to press yourself, and it sends a log bundle (run records, error messages, environment details) so we can work out why something misbehaves on your machine. Nothing is sent unless you click it. See the privacy policy.