ArtFetcher Support
Answers, and how to report a problem. For how the app works step
by step, read the help - the same pages ship inside
ArtFetcher under Help → ArtFetcher Help.
What ArtFetcher does
ArtFetcher finds high-resolution images of public-domain paintings. You give it
an artist and a title; it asks museum and cultural-heritage collections around the
world whether they hold that painting, downloads the best versions it finds, and
lets you keep the ones you want in your own library.
Requirements
macOS 26 or later.
Common questions
- Do I need an API key?
- No. ArtFetcher works without any API keys. You can search by artist and title without them.
Two things are there if you want them, and both need a key you supply. The Smithsonian is an
extra collection you can add for free: get a key, paste it into
Settings → Providers, press Test, and its
millions of Open Access works join every search. The optional AI Mode needs a key from
Anthropic, OpenAI or Google. Instructions for both are in ArtFetcher's settings window.
- What is AI Mode, and do I have to use it?
- When all you have is a photo or a screenshot of a painting, AI Mode can identify
the painting for you. It does this by uploading your image to the AI provider of your
choice (Anthropic, OpenAI or Google) and asking the AI model to identify it. Most times this
works, but sometimes it doesn't.
- AI Mode is switched off by default. And no you don't have to use it.
The app is fully functional without it. Please see the privacy policy for more information.
- Where do downloaded images go?
- A downloaded image is temporarily saved in the folder specified in Settings → Downloads.
From there you can preview, edit, rename, or resize it, then you can move it into one of
your library folders, or delete it.
- A search found nothing. Why?
- Usually the spelling of the artist or title, or the painting simply is not
in the collections queried. Try the artist's full name as a museum would list
it, and the title in its original or most common English form. The status rows
show what each provider answered. A provider can also hold the painting and
still decline to download it, when its record does not establish that the
image is free to reuse; the log for the search says so file by file.
- A provider I expected has no row.
- The rows list exactly the collections a search queries. A provider you
switch off in Settings → Providers has no
row, and neither has the Smithsonian until you add it there with its free
API key - once the key passes Test, its row appears with
the rest. A row whose name is struck through, reading
Disabled for 10 minutes, is one ArtFetcher is resting after
repeated failures - press its retry button to try it again now.
- Can I use the images however I like?
- Every file ArtFetcher saves is public domain or CC0, so none of them
asks anything of you - no credit line, no conditions on what you make from
it. ArtFetcher downloads nothing whose licence it has not checked. Most
providers are asked for public-domain or CC0 records and return nothing
else; Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata report a licence per file, and each one
is read before the download starts. Anything carrying an obligation -
CC BY, CC BY-SA - is passed over, as is anything whose licence
cannot be read at all.
- Why not offer CC BY images too?
- Because the obligation would be easy to miss and hard to undo. A
share-alike licence travels into whatever you make from the image, and a
picture you set as a wallpaper today may end up somewhere else a year
later. Restricting to public domain and CC0 means there is one rule to
remember: none. It costs a little reach on Wikimedia Commons because
roughly one painting file in five carries an obligation, but the very
largest scans, the ones ArtFetcher exists to find, are public domain
almost without exception.
- How do I tell what licence a downloaded image carries?
- It is written into the file. Each JPEG, TIFF and PNG download is stamped
with the title, the artist, the collection it came from, a link to that
collection's page for the work, and the licence. The terms travel
with the image into Preview, Get Info and photo software. The Search
Results window shows these fields when you select a file.
- So the licensing is settled?
- Not by us. ArtFetcher reports what a collection says about a work; it
cannot tell you what is lawful where you are. Copyright terms differ by
country, a photograph of a painting may be treated differently from the
painting, and some institutions attach terms of their own on top of the
licence. If you intend to publish, sell or build on an image, read the source
collection's terms first. Nothing here is legal advice.
Reporting a bug
ArtFetcher writes one log file a day. If you report a bug, please attach the log
from the day the bug occurred. Read the day's file in a window
with Help → Open Today's Log, open it in TextEdit
with Help → Open Today's Log in TextEdit, show
the folder with Help → Open Log Folder in Finder,
or find it at:
~/Library/Containers/com.artfetcher/Data/Library/Application Support/ArtFetcher/Logs
The same text is visible inside the app by clicking a provider row in the
status pane.
If the log does not say enough, tick Turn on debug logging for next 5
minutes in Settings → General and
reproduce the problem while it is on. The day's file then also records the
collections' raw replies and the score of every candidate they offered, on lines
marked debug. It switches itself off after five minutes.
Privacy
ArtFetcher has no accounts, no analytics and no tracking, and sends nothing to
the developer. Full detail in the privacy policy.