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Private editing

An AI photo editor that does not upload your photos

Onhand by ArkalEdge runs editing models on your iPhone or iPad, with no cloud upload. The photo you pick stays on the device, the result goes to an on-device gallery, and once a model pack is downloaded the tools keep working in airplane mode.

By Onhand · Updated September 30, 2026

The short answer

Onhand by ArkalEdge is an AI photo editor for iPhone and iPad that runs fully on the device, so your photos are never uploaded and edits keep working offline once a model pack is downloaded. It needs no subscription: the download and the fast editing model are free, and Pro is an optional one-time purchase for larger packs. Onhand is pre-launch and coming soon to iPhone and iPad, so join the launch list below to hear first.

One email at launch. No newsletter.

What you get

  • Restyle a photo with image-to-image on every model, with a strength control that sets how far the result moves from your original
  • Paint a mask over one area and regenerate only that area, using the free fast model
  • Remove a background on the device and keep the cut-out subject at full resolution
  • Resize an image without sending it anywhere
  • Keep iterating with the Refine loop, which feeds a result back in and keeps the earlier versions
  • Apply style presets instead of writing a long prompt every time
  • Browse every edit in an on-device gallery with its history

What does "private" mean here?

It means no cloud upload: the photo you are editing is never sent to a generation server. The model pack lives on your iPhone, the editing run happens on the device GPU, and the result is written back to the device. There is no render queue somewhere else, no copy of your photo on a company machine, and no human review step.

  • No cloud upload: your prompts, source photos and generated images stay on the device.
  • There is no account. You do not sign up, sign in, or attach an email address to use the editor.
  • After a model pack is downloaded, editing works with the network off. The pack download itself needs a connection, and so does the model catalog.
  • Results are saved to an on-device gallery that you control. Nothing is published or shared for you.

Being precise matters more than sounding absolute, so here is the rest of it. Onhand is not a zero-data app. It uses limited anonymous analytics, and purchases go through Apple and RevenueCat like any other App Store purchase. Neither of those receives your photos or your prompts. The privacy page lists what is collected and why, in plain terms.

Which edits can you actually do?

Onhand does whole-image and masked edits driven by a prompt. Start from a photo in your library, describe the change, and the model reworks the image on the device.

  • Restyle the whole photo. Image-to-image works on every model in the catalog. A strength control sets how much of the original survives: low strength keeps the composition and shifts the look, high strength rebuilds most of the frame.
  • Repaint one area. Paint a mask over a patch of the photo and regenerate only that patch. Masked inpainting is available with the free fast model, which is the pack you already have.
  • Remove the background. Segmentation runs on the device and gives you the subject on its own.
  • Resize. Change the pixel dimensions of an image without sending it off the phone.
  • Refine. Any result can go straight back in as the next input, and the earlier versions are kept so you can step back to the one you preferred.

Two practical notes. The free pack is a fast Stable Diffusion-class model of roughly 2 GB, and it is the only pack that does masked inpainting. The Pro packs, which a one-time purchase unlocks, add more looks for portraits and scenes and a higher-quality model with better prompt following. On the fast Turbo models, a negative prompt does nothing, so put the style you want in the positive prompt rather than listing what you do not want.

What is this not good for?

This is a generative editor, not a retouching suite. If you came looking for the tools a portrait retoucher reaches for, most of them are missing on purpose, and the honest answer is to use a different app for that part of the job.

  • No face tools. There is no skin smoothing, no eye or teeth work, no face swap and no identity adapter that carries one person across images.
  • No AI upscaling. Resize is a resize. It will not recover detail that is not in the file.
  • No outpainting. The canvas does not grow, so you cannot widen a crop or fill in what was outside the frame.
  • No video, no LoRA, no ControlNet and no importing your own checkpoints.
  • No Mac app and no web version. It is an iPhone and iPad app, iOS 26 or iPadOS 26 and later.

There is also a hardware limit worth stating plainly. Which packs a device can run depends on how much memory it has, not how new the chip is. The free pack runs on the developer test device, an iPhone 14 Pro with 6 GB. Larger packs need more memory, and an edit that does not fit does not quietly move to a server, because there is no server to move it to.

How can you check the claim yourself?

Do the airplane mode test. It takes a minute and it does not require taking anyone at their word.

  1. Open Onhand once with a connection and let the free model pack finish downloading.
  2. Turn on airplane mode, and switch Wi-Fi off as well so nothing reconnects.
  3. Pick a photo, write a prompt, set the strength, and run the edit.
  4. Try a masked repaint and a background removal in the same offline session.

Everything above finishes with the radios off. What does need a connection is downloading a new model pack, refreshing the catalog of available packs, and restoring a purchase. If you want to watch the traffic rather than the airplane mode indicator, a network privacy report from your router or a profiler will show the same thing: no image data leaving during a run.

Who should use an on-device editor?

People whose photos are not theirs to upload. That is the short version, and it covers more people than it first sounds like.

  • Parents and families, who would rather not put pictures of their children through a training pipeline they did not choose.
  • Photographers and designers holding client work under an agreement that says where the files may go.
  • Anyone working on something unreleased: product shots, packaging, a set, a prototype on a desk.
  • People in places or on plans where uploading a few hundred megabytes of photos is slow, metered or unreliable.
  • People who simply do not want an account, a credit balance or a monthly bill attached to editing their own pictures.

Onhand by ArkalEdge is a free download. The fast model that does image-to-image, masked inpainting and background removal is free to use, with no credits, no image cap and no subscription. Pro is a one-time purchase that unlocks the larger packs. The app is coming soon to iPhone and iPad and is not on the App Store yet. Join the launch list to hear first.

What it does not do

  • No AI upscaling. Resize changes the pixel dimensions and does not invent new detail.
  • No outpainting, so you cannot extend a photo past its original edges.
  • No ControlNet, no LoRA and no custom model import, so edits are steered by your prompt, the mask and the strength control only.
  • No cloud fallback. An edit that does not fit in the device memory does not get handed to a server.
  • Text and lettering inside an image are model-dependent and are never promised.

Frequently asked questions

Is there an AI photo editor that does not upload your photos?

Yes. Onhand by ArkalEdge runs its editing models on the iPhone or iPad itself, with no cloud upload. The photo you pick is never sent to a generation server. The edit is computed on the device GPU and saved to an on-device gallery. Downloading a model pack needs a connection; the editing itself does not.

Can I edit photos with AI while offline?

Yes, once the model pack is on the device. Restyling, masked inpainting, background removal, resizing and the Refine loop all run in airplane mode. You only need a connection to fetch a new pack, refresh the catalog or restore a purchase.

Does Onhand collect any data at all?

It collects limited anonymous analytics, and purchases run through Apple and RevenueCat the way any App Store purchase does. Neither path receives your prompts, your source photos or your results. The privacy page at /privacy lists the specifics.

How long does an on-device edit take?

The developer measured about 7 seconds for a 512 pixel image with the free fast model on an iPhone 14 Pro, and about 12 seconds with the XL pack. The method is described at /about. Your own timing depends on the device, the image size and the model pack you chose.

Can Onhand upscale or enlarge a photo with AI?

No. There is a resize tool that changes pixel dimensions, and there is no AI upscaler that adds detail. There is no outpainting either, so the frame cannot be extended past the original edges. If those are the tools you need, another app is the right choice.

Do I need a subscription to edit photos in Onhand?

No. The download is free and the fast model that handles image-to-image, masked inpainting and background removal is free to use, with no credits and no monthly fee. Pro is a one-time purchase that unlocks additional model packs, and the price varies by storefront.

Sources

Facts about other products come from their own listings and documentation, last checked on the date shown. Corrections are welcome at the address on the About page.