The app is distributed as a signed APK on GitHub. Installing it takes about a minute.
- Download the APK on your phone: opensolr-photos.apk, the latest release.
- Allow the install. Android asks once whether your browser may install apps. Allow it for this install.
- Open Opensolr Photos and tap Sign in with Opensolr. The Opensolr login opens in your browser; approve the app and you are back in it.
- Read what your plan covers, allow access to your photos, and choose your folders.
- The first sync starts on its own. Search as soon as the first photos show up.
Every release is signed with the same Opensolr Photos key. To check an APK before installing it, on a computer with the Android build tools:
The SHA-256 digest of the signer certificate must be:
The same fingerprint is published by opensolr.com in /.well-known/assetlinks.json. That file is what lets Android hand the end of the sign-in to this app and to no other.
The app looks at the latest release on GitHub once a day. When a newer one exists, the App updates section of the account screen shows what is new and an Update to X button. The app downloads the new APK itself, with a progress bar, checks that it carries the same signature and is really newer, and hands it to Android’s installer. Nothing is installed without you tapping the button.
- The first time, Android asks you to allow installs from Opensolr Photos. Allow it, come back and tap the button again.
- Android then asks to confirm the update. On Android 12 and newer, once the app has installed an update itself, later updates may go through without that question.
- A copy installed from Google Play or AppGallery is updated by that store, not by the app. Every build carries the same package name,
com.opensolr.photos.main.
You do not have to wait for that daily check: the account screen shows the version running on this phone and a Check for updates button that asks GitHub on the spot, offers again a version you had hidden with Not now, and says plainly when it could not reach GitHub rather than claiming you are up to date.
You can still install a newer APK by hand over the old one. Because every release carries the same signature, Android keeps your sign-in, your folders, your schedule and your edits. Releases and their notes are listed on GitHub. Phones that got the app from IzzyOnDroid or Obtainium are updated by those instead.
- Reinstalling on the same phone: sign in again. The app finds the phone's existing index and only syncs the differences. See the phone's index.
- A new phone: it gets an index of its own in the same account, and a first sync.
- Uninstalling: removes the app and everything it kept on the phone. The index stays in your Opensolr account; delete it from the control panel if you no longer want it.