Finding similar images with Rust and a Vector DB

At Ente Photos, everything is end-to-end encrypted. This means a lot of the smart computations that would typically happen on servers instead run on your device. With limited compute available, we're constantly finding ways to do things more efficiently.

Recently, we've decided to bring Rust into our mobile apps to unlock performance gains, paving the way for exciting new features. Our first step? Integrating a vector database in Rust that enabled us to add a "similar images" detection feature, making it easier for users to clean up their photo libraries.

We already offered deduplication of same files using file hashes, but now we can easily find visually close images too.

Why Rust?

This marks the first time we've added Rust code to our mobile photos app. It's part of a larger push to…