Natural-language visual search
Search by describing what you want instead of relying on filenames. The app uses visual and text embeddings, and signal tuning can make results more specific to a user’s labels.
Dotient
Dotient is a local-first desktop app for searching personal files with AI-powered visual and text search. It helps photographers, designers, and anyone with large personal archives find and organize files on their own machine.
Overview
Dotient is a local-first desktop application for organizing and searching personal file archives with AI embeddings. Its core workflow is simple: import files, let the app create searchable profiles on your machine, then find items by describing what they look like or by using text search.
The product is aimed at people who collect large numbers of images and other personal media across many folders. The site highlights photographers, videographers, designers, art directors, and anyone with an unstructured camera roll, with supporting tools for browsing, grouping, annotation, and similarity-based exploration.
Features
Local-first indexing
Import files locally and build searchable profiles on your own machine. The site emphasizes that files never leave the device and that the app works fully offline.
Similarity graph view
Browse an archive in a node graph where edges reflect similarity between files. The app also detects clusters so related items can be labeled and explored together.
Cubbies for collections and notes
Group related files into Cubbies, which are presented as collections for moodboards, annotations, todo lists, and other manual organization tasks.
Signal tuning and classification
Create Signals to fine-tune search results. The docs describe signals as semantic classifiers that can be combined and adjusted with hubness analysis.
Gallery browsing and filtering
Use the gallery to browse media in a virtualized masonry grid, search by text or color, filter results, and inspect media details.
Who it’s for
Photographers and videographers
Find a specific shot across large photo or video archives by describing the scene, subject, or look instead of sorting through folder names manually.
Designers and art directors
Collect reference images, mood boards, and project notes in Cubbies, then annotate and arrange them as visual working spaces.
Personal photo archives
Search years of personal photos when the archive has little or no tagging. The app is designed to help surface images by visual similarity and natural-language prompts.
Archive exploration and curation
Inspect an archive as a similarity graph when you want to understand clusters, relationships, and nearby items before labeling or refining search behavior.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Runs locally so personal files stay on the user's machine.
- Supports visual search from natural-language descriptions rather than requiring filenames or tags.
- Includes multiple ways to organize and refine an archive, including cubbies, signals, and graph exploration.
- Provides both a download path and documentation for setup, browsing, and advanced tools.
Cons
- The pricing page is currently a 404/placeholder, so purchase details are not fully presented there.
- The source does not clearly confirm third-party integrations or collaboration features.
- Supported file formats, platform requirements, and import limitations are only partially documented in the provided sources.
FAQ
What does Dotient do?
Dotient is a local-first desktop app for searching personal files by describing what they look like. It imports files locally, creates searchable profiles with AI embeddings, and lets you search visually and by text.
How do you get started with it?
The docs say to download, install, activate a license, and import your first files to get started. The download page also provides separate installers for Windows and macOS.
Does Dotient work offline?
Yes. The site says files never leave your machine, the app works fully offline, and the license page states that a standard license can be used on up to 3 computers.
How is Dotient priced?
The pricing page is currently a 404/placeholder, but the home page and download page both indicate a Standard license with a one-time $5 purchase.
Does Dotient integrate with other apps?
The documentation highlights file gallery browsing, signals, cubbies, graph exploration, and settings. The source does not clearly describe third-party integrations or team collaboration features.
Quick Facts
- Category
- Productivity / AI Search
- Product type
- Local-first desktop app
- Platforms
- Windows and macOS installers are listed
- Pricing
- Standard license, one-time $5 purchase
- License
- Use on up to 3 computers; future updates included
- Source domain
- dotient.com
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