The Obscura Flow licence is Ed25519-signed and verified on your Mac, with no server to ask. It identifies the installation and shows your entitlement state in the app.
What the free tier covers
Since version 2.0 the free tier has a clear boundary. With no account, or on the free tier, you have:
- imports — folders and Lightroom catalogues, with no photo limit;
- the Photos grid and its viewers;
- one project;
- the library itself, its settings, and your account;
- restoring your archives.
The other areas — catalogue raisonné, agents, exhibitions, publications, review, tags, collections, people, archiving, integrity checks, activity history, insights, workflow, certificates, reports, logs — require a signed-in session on a paid plan, and do not appear in navigation without one.
No file is ever held hostage. Everything already imported stays readable, exportable and restorable, including from an archive, on any tier. Restore is deliberately free: getting your own photos back must not depend on a subscription.
Before updating from a 1.x version. Previously, everything that did not need the network was open without a licence. An existing installation used without a licence therefore loses access to those areas after updating to 2.0. A paid licence restores everything immediately, and no data is lost in the meantime.
Activation
Activation happens from your profile or the settings. The first sign-in validates the licence online; after that, the app works offline.
Working offline
This is the normal case, not the exception. Once the licence has been validated once, the signed snapshot is kept on your Mac with its validity dates and verified locally at every launch — with no network, and with no loss of features.
What bounds this is a grace window: the one the server grants, or thirty days since the last successful contact. Beyond it, paid features close until the next connection, and the app tells you so, naming the cause. It never makes anything vanish without explanation.
Revalidation is automatic the moment the network returns, and when the app comes back to the foreground. A Check now button triggers it on demand. Nothing needs re-buying, and free capabilities are never touched.
A laptop that spent a fortnight in a studio with no Wi-Fi therefore comes back to a complete app the second it rejoins a network, without you having to know a check was owed.
Device registration and revocation
A device registers with the account, and a licence can be revoked and reassigned to another Mac. The device list and revocation live in the licence screen. The device cap depends on the plan; when it is reached, the screen says so and offers to free a slot.
Moving to another Mac
Before switching machines, check that the library folders (with their workspace.obf file), the project folders and the archives are copied or reachable from the new Mac. You may need to register the new device there. An encrypted archive can only be restored on the Mac that created it — back up the signing key from the settings before changing machines.
Getting help
For any licence question, have the library name, the app version (2.0.5), the macOS architecture (Apple Silicon or Intel), and a screenshot of the state shown in your profile or the settings.