Install Yomika¶

Download a release¶

Download the latest Windows portable .exe or .zip from the Yomika Releases page. The ZIP contains the same executable. Extract it to a folder you control and run Yomika-<version>-windows-x64.exe; there is no installer. For a development or custom build, follow Build From Source.

What Yomika stores locally¶

Yomika is a local-first application. The portable desktop binary is only part of its disk footprint. The first real run also creates a per-user local data directory for:

runtime libraries used by llama.cpp and GPU backends
downloaded vision and OCR models
optional local translation models you select later

Yomika keeps its own files under a Yomika app-data root and stores model weights separately from the application binary.

First launch expectations¶

On first run, Yomika may:

extract or download runtime libraries required by the local inference stack
download the default vision and OCR models used by detection, segmentation, OCR, inpainting, and font estimation
wait to download optional local translation LLMs until you choose Download in the model picker

This is normal and can take a while depending on your connection and hardware. Model downloads show progress, can be cancelled, and report completion in the notification area. Use Settings > Runtime to change the model-library folder, delete downloaded models, or download a model again.

If you want to prefetch those runtime dependencies ahead of time, run Yomika once with --download. That path initializes the runtime packages and default vision stack, then exits without opening the GUI.

Application updates¶

Yomika checks the latest GitHub release when it starts. You can also run the check from Settings > About. When a newer version exists, Yomika shows a notification that opens the Releases page; it never downloads or installs an application update automatically.

GPU acceleration notes¶

Yomika supports:

CUDA on supported NVIDIA GPUs
Metal on Apple Silicon Macs
Vulkan on Windows and Linux for OCR and LLM inference
CPU fallback on all platforms

Some practical details matter:

detection and inpainting benefit most from CUDA or Metal
Vulkan is mainly the fallback GPU path for OCR and local LLM inference
if Yomika cannot verify that your NVIDIA driver supports CUDA 13.0 or newer, it falls back to CPU

On CUDA-capable systems, Yomika bundles and initializes the runtime pieces it needs instead of requiring you to configure every library path manually.

Note

Keep your NVIDIA driver up to date. Yomika requires a driver supporting CUDA 13.0 or newer for vision GPU acceleration, and CUDA 13.1+ on Windows for the local LLM CUDA path. If the driver is too old, Yomika falls back to CPU.

After installation¶

Once Yomika launches successfully, the next decisions are usually:

desktop GUI vs headless mode
local translation model vs remote provider
rendered export vs layered PSD export

See:

Need help?¶

Search or open a report in GitHub Issues.