Help Center

Support

Find answers, system requirements and ways to reach us. PhotoCore runs entirely on your Mac, so most questions are answered in seconds.

Frequently asked questions

The most common questions — offline use, privacy, pricing and compatibility — are answered on the home page FAQ.

System requirements

PhotoCore requires a Mac with Apple Silicon (M1–M5) and macOS 26 Tahoe or later. It is not compatible with Intel Macs.

Managing cache & local storage

PhotoCore runs entirely on your Mac. The options under Settings → Search → Cache size let you free up disk space and keep your index tidy — without ever putting your photos at risk.

Your original photos are never touched. Every action here only affects two things the app generates: the search database (the list of photos you've indexed) and the thumbnails shown in the gallery. Your original files (JPG, RAW, HEIC…) stay exactly where they are.

What “Zero KB · N indexed images” means

12.3 MB

On-disk size of the thumbnails — 256px .heic files in ~/Library/Application Support/PhotoCore/Thumbnails/. They let the gallery show your photos even when the source drive is disconnected.

N indexed images

Records in the search database (photocore.db): EXIF metadata, a semantic embedding and a reference to the file. This is what powers text and similarity search.

The two figures can differ: after an automatic cleanup you may see “Zero KB” while the indexed-images counter stays high — the cleanup removed thumbnails, not records.

1Manage roots and saved paths

Remove an entire external drive, NAS or folder you no longer need from the index. For each “root” you see its name, path and photo count; tapping the trash icon and confirming deletes that root's database records and thumbnails. Other roots are untouched. Source files are never affected — reconnect the drive, re-index, and the photos come back.

2Automatic consistency cleanup

Reclaim space without losing any indexing. It compares the thumbnails on disk against the database records and deletes only the orphaned .heic files — leftovers from old indexing runs that no longer match any photo. No records are removed.

3Suggest ghost paths (Smart Purge)

Automatically finds drives or NAS volumes you indexed in the past that are unreachable right now. It lists these “ghost volumes” with an estimate of the space you'd recover; you pick the ones to remove and confirm. It never touches currently connected drives, and nothing is deleted until you confirm.

4Clear all irreversible

Start over: it deletes every record, all registered roots and all thumbnails, then compacts the database to return space to the filesystem. Afterwards the gallery stays empty until you re-index a folder. Your original photos remain on disk. A confirmation alert is always shown first — this action cannot be undone, and the only way to rebuild the index is to re-index from scratch.

How to choose

Your goal	Option
Remove a single folder or drive	Manage roots
Reclaim space without losing the index	Automatic cleanup
See what's safe to remove among old drives	Smart Purge
Start completely from scratch	Clear all

Before reaching for Clear all, check whether one of the first three actions is enough — they're more surgical and don't destroy the indexing work you've already done.

Getting in touch

Email support@photocore.pro. Full Access customers receive priority support.