Your footage never leaves your Mac.
Orcah is local-first for a reason: your raw footage is some of the most personal data you own.
Last updated September 25, 2026
- 1.
On-device by default
Indexing, transcription, face detection, embeddings and search all run locally on your computer. Your footage is never uploaded unless you choose the cloud indexer.
- 2.
Your files stay put
Orcah reads your footage where it already lives — internal drives, SD cards, external SSDs, a NAS. It never copies your media anywhere.
- 3.
Open & inspectable
The source-available edition runs locally via Docker, so you can read exactly what it does, verify the claims on this page, and help make it better.
What stays on your Mac
Everything Orcah Studio does to make your library searchable happens on your machine. Scene detection, transcription, speaker separation, face detection and clustering, object and text recognition, color analysis, telemetry and the embeddings that power search.
The machine-learning models are downloaded once, the first time you index. After that, no network connection is needed at all. You can turn off Wi-Fi and keep indexing.
What we collect
As little as possible. By default, the app collects nothing: telemetry and analytics are off unless you explicitly opt in.
If you do opt in to telemetry, it is limited to anonymous usage and diagnostic information that helps us fix bugs and improve the app. It never includes your footage or your indexed data.
Your data, your control
Because everything lives on your computer, control is literal: delete the index and it's gone; move a drive and the library moves with it; uninstall the app and nothing of yours remains with us, because nothing was ever with us.
Changes to this policy
If this policy changes, we'll update this page and note the date at the top. The principle won't change: your footage stays on your Mac.
Contact
Questions about privacy, or want to verify a claim on this page? Email privacy@orcah.app.