Octui began with a simple idea: our photos should be easier to organize, find, and enjoy. We want family memories to feel like something we can explore, not another digital chore. Before we talk about the future, we want to share what is already taking shape.
Octui is still in development and isn't available as a finished app. But we have moved beyond concept screens. We're testing real photo collections in a working Android build, finding rough edges, and improving the pieces people will rely on every day.
What works in the development build
Projects for the moments that matter
You can create and return to projects that bring photos together in one place. Instead of navigating one enormous camera roll, a project can become the home for a vacation, a celebration, or a family collection. The app saves those projects locally so the work is still there when you come back.
Bringing photos into Octui
The Android build can import multiple photos from your device, process their information, and generate thumbnails for browsing. Behind the scenes, we're working with an import queue that tracks each step, helping us recover from interrupted work instead of simply hoping a large batch finishes perfectly. We're still testing it with bigger, messier collections.
Dates, browsing, and a little more order
Octui can use available photo dates to help place memories in chronological order. When dates are missing or incorrect, there are ways to review and correct them. Within projects, you can browse images and arrange them manually to tell a story in the order you choose.
Spotting duplicates and similar photos
Early duplicate and visual-similarity tools can identify candidates for review. We are intentionally cautious here: two pictures can look alike and still capture different moments. Octui should help you make a decision, not decide that an irreplaceable photo should disappear. We are still improving detection accuracy and the review experience.
A foundation for people and faces
There's a People area and underlying support for people records, along with early on-device face-detection work. That is an important technical step, but detecting a face isn't the same as knowing whose face it is. Automatic recognition, reliable grouping by identity, and age estimation are not finished features today.
Taking your work with you
We also have basic tools for exporting organized project photos as a ZIP collection. The experience is still being refined, but it gives us a starting point for helping people do something useful with the memories they organize.
What still needs work
Some parts of the app still need polish, including parts of the photo-ordering experience and the way progress and feedback are displayed. Most testing so far has focused on Android; we aren't claiming that an iPhone beta is ready yet. And while future Octui features will help you find a person at a particular age or occasion, that level of understanding isn't available today.
Why we're building it this way
We're taking a local-first approach to organizing photos, with privacy and user control as priorities. Your memories are personal. Suggestions should be reviewable, and the app shouldn't silently throw away anything valuable.
There's a lot left to do. But being able to work with actual photos, see how the tools behave, and make changes based on those results is an exciting change from the days when Octui was only an idea.
Next up: preparing for our first small friends-and-family beta in late November. Here's what we're hoping to have ready.