Frequently asked questions.

A native macOS app that inventories your photo drives, finds exact (SHA-256) and visual (dHash, pHash) duplicates, recommends the copy to keep, and helps you consolidate your archives to a new location through verified copies, destroying nothing without your consent.

No. The analysis only reads: it writes, moves, renames, and deletes nothing in your sources. Everything it learns goes into the catalog.

No. No action in the Review Center touches a file: decisions are recorded in the catalog, and “Rouvrir le groupe” (Reopen group) undoes them. When transferring, a file marked as a duplicate, while a present master exists, is neither copied nor moved: it stays in the source.

No. All processing is local. The only possible connection is the update check, off by default, which only reads the list of published releases and sends nothing about your photos or your catalog.

They are in that drive's Trash: a move puts the sources there after their copy is verified, and the app never empties the Trash. Until you empty it, the space is not freed (that is the “recoverable space”).

Yes, but only if you allow it in Settings, through a confirmation where the Return key picks “Cancel”, then consent to it for the transfer, and finally acknowledge the irreversibility on the confirmation screen. It is off by default.

The transfer stops cleanly. Plug the drive back in and click “Reprendre” (Resume): resuming reads the journal, undoes the operation left open, and does not recopy what is already verified. Nothing resumes without your action.

The visual fingerprints of this version recognize neither cropping nor rotation. Two scans framed differently will generally not be matched.

Not as two sources: one source per drive. Choose their parent folder and use exclusions to leave out the rest.

It is not in the app yet; it is available from the command line (obscura rename), except on exFAT and FAT32 drives, which do not guarantee renaming without overwriting.

macOS 14 Sonoma or later, on both Apple silicon and Intel Macs (universal binary). The app is distributed outside the App Store, signed with Developer ID and notarized by Apple.

Download the disk image from the Obscura member area, which the Download page links to. Later updates come through “Rechercher les mises à jour…” (Check for Updates…) in the Obscura Trace menu.