Getting started
Platform support
What runs today on macOS, Windows, and Linux, the current unsigned-build status, and system requirements — honest about tested versus in progress.
Tessera is developed and tested primarily on macOS (Apple Silicon). The indexing pillars run cross-platform, but Windows and Linux are still being brought to first-class parity. This page is honest about what works today.
Status by feature
| Capability | macOS | Windows / Linux |
|---|---|---|
| Tags, embeddings, search, NudeNet | works | works |
| Captions (Tier 2 VLM) | works (mlx) | swap the caption route to a local server |
| Faces — embedding & clustering | works | works |
| Faces — detector | works (Apple Vision) | in progress (cross-platform detector) |
| Video ingest | works | needs ffmpeg / ffprobe on PATH |
| Desktop bundle | works | in progress (per-OS build matrix) |
Tags, embeddings, search, and NudeNet metadata work on all three platforms today through ONNX Runtime’s execution-provider probing — see Compute providers.
The remaining gaps are honest ones. Tier 2 captions use mlx, which is
macOS-only; on Windows and Linux you point the caption route at any
OpenAI-compatible local server. Face detection currently uses Apple Vision, so
the on-Windows/Linux detector is still in progress; face embedding and clustering
already work everywhere. Video ingest needs ffmpeg available on the path.
If you run from source rather than a desktop bundle, the indexing pillars work on all three platforms now.
Signing status
Builds are currently unsigned. This is expected until the first stable release; it is not a sign of compromise. Every release publishes SHA-256 checksums — verify your download before running it.
On macOS, Gatekeeper will refuse to open an unsigned build on a double-click. Use the right-click Open path (or System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open Anyway), documented step by step under Install. On Windows, SmartScreen may warn that the publisher is unrecognized; choose More info → Run anyway.
Code signing and notarization (Apple Developer ID on macOS) are planned, after which these steps go away.
System requirements
| Platform | Minimum |
|---|---|
| macOS | 13 Ventura or newer, Apple silicon or Intel |
| Windows | 10 / 11, 64-bit (DirectX 12 GPU recommended) |
| Linux | x86_64, glibc 2.31 or newer |
All platforms: 8 GB RAM (16 GB recommended) and roughly 10 GB of free disk for the app plus models. The first launch downloads about 3.5 GB of local models; after that Tessera runs fully offline. The catalog and thumbnail cache grow with your library.