Piktures, a free Android gallery app, has no account to create and no Piktures server: your photos and videos stay on your phone, and they leave it only when you share them, or when you copy, move or back them up to a cloud or a drive you connected yourself. The app does send usage statistics and crash reports, and its free plan shows a few Google ads; this page lists exactly what goes off the phone.
Does Piktures need an account or a server?
No. There is no Piktures account to create, no sign-up to use the app or to buy a plan, and no Piktures server that receives your photos. Piktures has no cloud of its own: it opens your photos where they are, on the phone, on an SD card, on a USB drive, on a network drive, or on a cloud service you connect in the Storage tab.
The gallery, the editors and the Secret Space run on your phone and need no Piktures server, so the app keeps working without Diune. Even the Secret Space's PIN recovery relies on a security question stored on your phone, not on an e-mail or a server.
Where do my photos go?
Nowhere, unless you send them. Your photos leave the phone in three cases only:
- when you share them. The Before sharing screen has a Remove location option, so photos go out without their GPS position; on JPEG photos it also removes the date and the camera details;
- when you copy or move them to a cloud or a network drive you connected, such as OneDrive, Dropbox, Nextcloud or a NAS. The first access is free;
- when automatic backup sends your phone albums to a cloud or a network drive, with Premium or Prime.
The information you add stays with your photos: a personal tag is written inside the photo file itself, not on a server, so it follows the photo wherever you copy it.
What does Piktures send off the phone?
A few Google services, listed in Our product principles:
- Firebase Analytics and Firebase Crashlytics send usage statistics and crash reports. Crash reports are how Diune finds the bugs that only happen on some phones or Android versions.
- Google Play tells Piktures whether you own a paid plan. The app asks each time it starts.
- Google ads are shown in the free Basic plan. When the ads are about to start, Piktures asks Google whether your consent is needed, and Google's consent form opens if it is. Your answer doesn't remove the ads: only a paid plan does.
- Google Maps draws the map in a photo's details. Place names come from Android's geocoding service, which may also use the network, depending on the phone.
Browsing a cloud or a network drive, and copying photos to or from one, use your data connection too. See Data usage.
Piktures without an account: the facts
| App | Piktures, by Diune, for Android 11 or later |
| Account | None. No sign-up to use the app or to buy a plan |
| Piktures server | None. No Piktures cloud, no copy of your photos |
| Where photos go | Nowhere, unless you share them or copy, move or back them up to a cloud or drive you connected |
| What is sent | Usage statistics and crash reports (Firebase), the plan check (Google Play), ads in the free plan (Google), the map in a photo's details (Google Maps) |
| Ads | A few, in the free Basic plan; none in the first 3 days. The one-time No ads purchase removes them |
| Price | Free. No ads and Premium are one-time purchases; Prime is a monthly subscription |
| Clouds, if you want them | Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, Koofr, Yandex Disk, Nextcloud, WebDAV, and SMB network drives. Your login details stay on the phone |
| Private photos | The Secret Space, behind a PIN, stored only on the phone. Scrambled, not encrypted |
| If Diune disappears | The app keeps working. A one-time purchase stays active; a Prime subscription stays active for 7 days after its last successful check |
| Open source | No. The code is Diune's intellectual property |
| Publisher | Diune, London, not affiliated with a social network or an ad company |
Questions
Does Piktures collect my data?
It collects usage statistics and crash reports, through Firebase Analytics and Crashlytics, and it checks your plan with Google Play. It does not collect your photos, and there is no account, so nothing you do is tied to an identity you gave Piktures. The free plan's ads come from Google, under Google's consent form where it applies.
Does Piktures upload my photos to the cloud?
Not by itself. Piktures has no cloud. Your photos go to a cloud only if you connect one in the Storage tab and then copy, move or back them up there yourself.
Are there ads?
In the free Basic plan, yes, a few, after your first 3 days. The one-time No ads purchase removes them for good; Premium and Prime remove them too and unlock every feature. See In-app purchases.
Can I share a photo without its location?
Yes. On the Before sharing screen, under ADVANCED, turn on Remove location. See Sharing options.
Is Piktures open source?
No. The code is Diune's intellectual property, and there is no Piktures account or social network behind the app. See Why is Piktures not open-source?.