Installing Lensmith
Lensmith is distributed directly rather than through the App Store, and is currently a private beta. Setup is a disk image, one trip through the macOS security gate, and an invite code — a minute, once.
What it needs
- macOS
- 14.6 Sonoma or later.
- Mac
- Apple silicon or Intel. The app ships as one universal binary; there is nothing to choose.
- Disk
- About 250 MB for the app itself. The AI models are downloaded only when you first reach for one, and can be deleted again from Settings ▸ AI Models.
- An account
- None. There is no sign-in, and nothing you import, edit or export leaves your Mac — see what leaves your Mac.
Download and install
Open the .dmg and drag Lensmith into Applications. That is the whole install: there is no installer package, nothing runs as root, and nothing is added outside the app bundle and your own Application Support folder.
The DMG is for the first install only. After that the app updates itself — see how updates arrive.
The macOS security gate
Because Lensmith is distributed outside the App Store, macOS warns the first time you open it — “Apple could not verify Lensmith is free of malware”. That is expected, and it is a one-time gate rather than a verdict: the app is signed and notarised, but Gatekeeper asks anyway for anything that did not come from the store.
- macOS 15 Sequoia
- Double-click Lensmith and dismiss the warning. Open System Settings ▸ Privacy & Security, scroll to Security, and click Open Anyway next to Lensmith. Confirm with Touch ID or your password.
- macOS 14 Sonoma
- Control-click (or right-click) Lensmith in Applications, choose Open, then Open again in the dialog.
Still blocked? Removing the download quarantine flag forces it open:
xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Lensmith.app
You only do this once per Mac. Updates that arrive through the app are not quarantined, so the gate does not come back.
The invite code
On first launch Lensmith shows the Private Beta screen. Paste your invite code and click Continue. The code is checked once, over the internet; after that this Mac is remembered and the screen does not come back.
No code yet? Request an invite — a short form, read and answered by one person, so expect days rather than minutes.
What you land in
Lensmith opens on a demo catalog: 110 royalty-free photographs, about a third of them already developed, so the grid, the badges and the editor have something real in them before you have imported anything. Nothing in it is yours and nothing in it is precious — rate it, edit it, delete it.
When you want your own photographs, import a folder: it is catalogued where it already sits on disk, and nothing is copied or renamed. Your own catalogs live beside it — see catalogs & files for where everything is kept.
How updates arrive
The app checks for updates itself and offers them in place; you never download a DMG again. Help ▸ Check for Updates… asks now rather than waiting.
Updates are signed and delivered as a difference against the version you have, so they are small. During the beta they come often.
Removing it
Drag Lensmith from Applications to the Trash. That leaves your photographs exactly where they are — the catalog only ever pointed at them.
What stays behind, and can go with it: ~/Library/Application Support/Lensmith
(catalogs you made there, the AI models, your presets and profiles) and
~/Library/Caches/Lensmith (thumbnails and rendered previews, all
re-creatable). Catalogs & files lists the lot.