Frequently asked questions

A desktop application that watches folders you choose and records what actually happens to the files in them: each version, rename and deletion, with when it happened. It stores each distinct piece of content once, lets you move back through a project's history, and restores any version it kept.

Windows x64 (an installer and a portable build) and Linux x64 (an AppImage and a Debian package). Version 0.2.0 was tested on Windows 11 and on Ubuntu 24.04. There is no macOS release.

Tested: Windows 11 (10.0.26200, x64) and Ubuntu 24.04 LTS (x64, under WSL2). Windows 10 has not been tested. The Linux builds need glibc 2.39 or newer. The Windows builds need the Microsoft Edge WebView2 Runtime, which Windows 11 includes.

No. There is no account, sign-in or licence key.

No. There is no machine learning model in AFTRIMGE and nothing is sent to one. Recording, deduplication, integrity checks and restore are exact operations on bytes and SHA-256 digests. Image archaeology compares images with deterministic measurements, such as perceptual hashes and aligned pixel residuals, that give the same result every time for the same inputs, and grades what it finds.

Yes. The application contains no network code: it makes no requests, checks for no updates and sends nothing. The only network access involved is the Windows installer downloading Microsoft's WebView2 bootstrapper when the WebView2 Runtime is missing, which Windows 11 already includes.

No. The Windows and Linux builds are not code-signed yet, so Windows SmartScreen may say the publisher is unknown, and on a computer where Smart App Control is enforcing it may block the program. Every file is published with its SHA-256 checksum and a record of how it was built and tested.

Compare its SHA-256 checksum with the one published beside it in SHA256SUMS.txt: Get-FileHash .\file -Algorithm SHA256 in Windows PowerShell, or sha256sum file on Linux. A matching checksum confirms the file is the one that was published. It does not identify who published it. See Installation.

• It is not a backup. The archive is on the same computer as your work; copy the archive folder elsewhere to protect against losing the disk.
• The archive is not encrypted.
• Only content in folders you chose, recorded while AFTRIMGE could watch or scan them, is in history. Files larger than 256 MiB have their versions recorded without their bytes.
• Integrity verification proves stored bytes have not changed. It does not prove who made them.
• Archaeology results other than identical bytes are measurements graded INFERRED or POSSIBLE, not proof of where an image came from.
• Power loss and a genuinely full disk have not been tested.

In Architecture, which records every subsystem, invariant and defect found while building AFTRIMGE. The website also has an interactive overview of the components.

No. Everything it records stays on your computer.

No. AFTRIMGE's own code makes no network requests of any kind.

It records, locally, what you ask it to watch: file paths, file contents, sizes, times and the history of changes, plus its own measurements and logs. None of it leaves your computer. The Diagnostics button saves a report only when you ask, to a place you choose; it contains counts, format and platform details and redacted log lines, but no file contents, file names, paths or project names, and it is not sent anywhere. See the Privacy Policy.

No. There is no telemetry, analytics or crash reporting. If AFTRIMGE fails internally, it writes a short local record to logs/panic.log in the archive folder before it stops; that file is never sent anywhere. If AFTRIMGE crashes, Windows may record the crash in its own Error Reporting system, which is controlled by Windows, not by AFTRIMGE.

AFTRIMGE does not. On Windows, the installer downloads Microsoft's WebView2 bootstrapper only if the WebView2 Runtime is not already installed. The WebView2 Runtime and the Linux web engine are third-party components with their own behaviour.

Installed on Windows: %APPDATA%\com.aftrimge.desktop. Portable on Windows: the AFTRIMGE Data folder beside AFTRIMGE.exe. Linux: ~/.local/share/com.aftrimge.desktop. See Data and storage.

The Windows installer puts the program in %LOCALAPPDATA%\AFTRIMGE. The portable build runs from wherever you extracted it. The Linux AppImage runs from wherever you put it; the Debian package installs system-wide.

No. It is as readable as your own files. Use your operating system's disk encryption if you need that.

AFTRIMGE waits until the file has stopped changing (about a second by default), reads and hashes it, and compares the result with the file's last version. If the content is new, a version and its event are recorded; if it is the same, nothing is recorded. Renames and moves keep the file's identity and history. A deletion is recorded as an event, and earlier versions stay.

Yes. Move the playhead to any recorded moment to see the project as it was, with the names files had then and real previews of images. Any version can be opened, compared with another, exported, or restored while its bytes are kept.

One recorded version of one file: which content it had, how large it was, and when it was recorded.

It is stored once. Content is addressed by its SHA-256 digest, so any number of versions, files or projects holding identical bytes share one stored object.

Releasing the stored bytes of versions older than a number of days that you choose. The versions stay in history with their events and names; only their bytes become eligible for removal. The newest version of every file that still exists is never released.

A sweep deletes bytes that nothing holds: no retained version, no archived image, no preservation. The record that the content existed remains and reads as MISSING. Sweeps only run when you ask, and can be previewed first. Bytes with no record at all are only removed once they are at least 15 minutes old.

Retention and sweeps never remove history: released and collected versions keep their events, times and names, and content whose bytes are gone reads as MISSING. Deleting a project is different. It removes that project's files, versions and events from the record; the stored content stays until a sweep finds nothing else holds it.

As much as the distinct content of the versions it keeps, plus a small database and caches. The Memory panel shows the archive's size on disk and what a sweep would reclaim. There is no size limit. Files larger than 256 MiB have their versions recorded without their bytes being kept.

Yes, one file at a time, from any version whose bytes are still kept: as a copy beside the original, in place, or, after a conflict is shown to you, by forcing it. A restore checks the stored bytes before writing, checks the written file after, adds to history, and only writes inside the project.

Yes. Verify whole archive in the storage ledger reads every stored object AFTRIMGE has a record of and checks its SHA-256, with progress and a stop button. The result says VERIFIED only if every object was read and matched; damage, unreadable objects and a stopped pass are each reported as such.

That an object's bytes, read in full, still hash to the identity they are stored under. It proves the content has not changed since it was stored. It does not prove who created the content, and it is not a signature.

A stored object whose bytes no longer match its identity is reported as CORRUPT and is not used for restore. It can be repaired only from a source whose content has been verified to match. A wrong size in the database is reported as a metadata mismatch, never as corruption.

Its history is kept and it is reported as MISSING. Versions that relied on it cannot be restored unless a verified copy of the same content is found.

In testing, AFTRIMGE's process was terminated repeatedly while capturing, collecting and restoring. The database was never corrupted, no kept version lost its bytes, and a restored file was always one complete version. Leftover temporary data is cleaned up or reported. Power loss has not been tested.

If it fails internally it writes a short local record to logs/panic.log before it stops, and nothing is sent anywhere. The archive lock is released by the operating system however the process ends, so the next launch opens normally, and its first scan of each watched folder records what changed in the meantime and removes restore temporary files that a crash left behind, once they are 15 minutes old.

Yes. The Diagnostics button in the status bar saves a report where you choose: version, platform, archive counts, a database check and log lines with every name, path and value that is not a plain number removed. It contains no file contents and is not sent anywhere.

The write fails, the operation stops, and the error is reported. This was tested with a simulated full disk, not a real one: adding content to the archive stored nothing and left no partial file; a restore left the existing file untouched and no temporary file; an export left any existing destination file as it was; and a database format upgrade did not happen when its backup could not be written.

Copying the whole archive folder, with AFTRIMGE closed, is how the archive is backed up, and reopening such a copy has been tested on the same computer. Moving it to another computer has not been tested. Watched folders are recorded by their full path, so projects need to exist at the same paths.

A Windows build that runs from a folder without installation and keeps its archive in an AFTRIMGE Data folder beside the executable. Moving the folder moves the archive. See Portable mode.

Close AFTRIMGE first, then move or copy the whole folder. When it starts from the new location it finds its archive beside it, with its history intact; this was tested by moving the folder on the same Windows computer. Watched project folders are remembered by their full path, so a project whose own folder moved must be added again.

On Windows, the uninstaller removes the program and keeps your archive, unless you tick Delete the application data, which deletes every recorded version permanently. Removing the Linux Debian package does not touch the archive in your home directory.

It shows the cause and where the archive is. Copy the archive folder before trying anything else. See Recovery and restore.