The file you picked,
and a guide.

New in v0.1.3-beta

Open and Reveal use the file you selected. After a batch, the buttons used to open whichever result finished last. They now act on the item selected in the Media list, including results from an earlier session, and hide while that item has no result.

A user guide. Help → LocalSR User Guide and the … menu open the new user guide: the three tasks, models, batches, video, where results are saved, and troubleshooting. A short welcome on first launch points to it and says that the update check sends an anonymous count, and where to turn that off.

A steady comparison handle. When you zoom or pan, the ↔ handle stays in the middle of the preview frame and keeps its size.

The app is called LocalSR. The installer, menu bar and Finder Quick Action no longer say “LocalSR Next Preview”. Settings, models and the update channel are unchanged; an installed beta keeps its current file name when it updates, and you can rename it in Finder.

Fixed: the app declared macOS 12 as its minimum, but its PyTorch libraries need macOS 14. Older systems now get a clear message instead of an engine that does not start.

If you installed an earlier beta, the app offers this update the next time you open it. It replaces the inference engine as well, so the download is about 730 MB.

In v0.1.2-beta

H.264, HEVC and AAC through macOS. LocalSR still ships only royalty-free codecs. On a Mac it hands phone and camera recordings to the codecs Apple ships with the system, through a small helper built on AVFoundation, so iPhone and camera videos open directly and H.264/HEVC exports are written by the system encoder into MP4. An installed FFmpeg is used automatically for the formats macOS cannot read, and opening a file with LocalSR while it was not running no longer crashes.

In this release

• Drop to start. The empty preview is one drop field: drop photos, videos or whole folders, or click it to choose files.
• Model library. Quick and Best presets, saved recipes that light up when active, and verified model downloads with their licenses.
• Video export in AV1, VP9 or lossless FFV1, with source timing, orientation and compatible audio kept. HDR preservation exports 10-bit video (Labs).
• A new icon and a calmer window. The LocalSR crop mark, a centred title and cleaner menus.

Video formats

LocalSR includes only royalty-free or patent-expired media formats, so the app itself never ships H.264, HEVC or AAC codecs. Photos are unaffected.

On macOS those formats go through the codecs that ship with the system, so most phone and camera videos open and export without anything else installed. H.264/HEVC exports written this way go into MP4; for MKV, and for formats macOS cannot read such as WMV, DivX or FLV, install FFmpeg (for example brew install ffmpeg). LocalSR uses an installed FFmpeg automatically, runs it as a separate program, and never downloads or bundles it. Converting through it uses extra disk space for a temporary lossless copy.

Updates

When you open LocalSR, it checks quietly for a newer beta. If one is available, a notice offers Update Now: the update downloads, is verified against LocalSR's signing key, then installs and restarts. While a queue is running, it waits until processing finishes. Settings, recipes and downloaded models are kept.

Earlier alpha builds cannot update themselves. Install the current beta once from the download page; later betas arrive in the app.

Choose the right installer

• macOS 14+, Apple Silicon: a DMG with the MPS processing backend and CPU fallback, Developer ID signed and notarized by Apple. This is the most tested build, and it updates itself.
• Windows 10 / 11, x86-64: an installer that runs on the CPU. It is not code-signed, so SmartScreen warns before it runs, and it does not update itself yet.
• Linux, x86-64: an AppImage that runs on the CPU. Make it executable and run it; it does not update itself yet.
• GPU editions for NVIDIA (CUDA), AMD (ROCm) and DirectML are built but held back; the reasons are in the project’s platform notes.

Still in development

GPU editions for Windows and Linux, testing on more hardware, and Labs features such as SeedVR2 video, de-flicker and HDR preservation are still in progress. Results are reconstructions: inspect text, faces and fine detail before relying on them. Report problems on GitHub Issues.

Models have their own terms

Not sure which model does what? The model guide explains every model, its best use, and its license in plain words — including what to check before downloading or using results commercially.

LocalSR's own code is MIT-licensed. Models download separately and keep their own licenses; each catalog entry shows its author, source and license before download.

Source and licenses

This software uses libraries from the FFmpeg project under the LGPLv2.1. LocalSR does not own FFmpeg. The corresponding source, build instructions and license notices for this build are published with the installer on the GitHub release as LocalSR-v0.1.3-beta-source-and-notices.tar.gz, including the exact FFmpeg, OpenCV, LibRaw and GCC runtime sources.

Verify your download

Compare the SHA-256 digest of your downloaded installer with the published checksum file.

On macOS:

shasum -a 256 LocalSR-v0.1.3-beta-macOS-arm64.dmg