Installing RetinaFace on Windows 11 takes only a few minutes when you follow the right order: download, verify, extract, and run your first detection.
Windows 11 is the most common place people first try RetinaFace, and the good news is that the process is straightforward. This guide walks through every step from the initial download to a confirmed working detection, with the small checks that save you from the handful of issues new users typically run into.
Before you start
You will need a 64-bit Windows 11 machine with at least 4 GB of free memory and roughly 200 MB of disk space for the application and its sample data. A dedicated GPU is optional: RetinaFace runs comfortably on the CPU for images and light video, and only benefits from a GPU when you push toward real-time work. If you intend to script it from Python, make sure you have a recent Python 3 release installed and on your PATH.
Step 1: Download the package
Always begin from the official download section rather than a third-party mirror. Mirrors are where tampered or out-of-date builds tend to circulate, and a face detector is exactly the kind of tool you want to keep clean. Choose between the standard installer, which registers the app and creates shortcuts, and the portable build, which runs from a single folder without changing your system. Either works on Windows 11; pick the installer if you want a normal app, or the portable build if you prefer to keep things self-contained.
Step 2: Verify the download
Once the file lands in your Downloads folder, take ten seconds to confirm it looks right. The reported size should match what the download page lists, and if a checksum is published you can verify it from PowerShell with Get-FileHash. This habit costs almost nothing and rules out a corrupted or substituted file before you ever run it.
Step 3: Install or extract
If you chose the installer, double-click it and accept the default location unless you have a reason to change it. Windows 11 may show a SmartScreen prompt the first time; choose to keep and run the file once you are satisfied it came from the official source. If you chose the portable build, right-click the archive, extract it to a folder you control such as C:\Tools\RetinaFace, and you are done — nothing is written outside that folder.
Step 4: Run your first detection
Launch the application from the Start menu or the portable folder and open the bundled sample image. Within a second or two you should see a box drawn around each face along with five small landmark dots marking the eyes, nose tip and mouth corners. If you prefer the scripted route, run the included example to print the same boxes, landmarks and confidence scores to your console. Seeing that first clean result is the confirmation that everything installed correctly.
If something goes wrong
The most common snags are easy to clear. A missing runtime usually means you skipped a prerequisite the installer mentioned — re-run it and let it complete. A slow first run is normal, because some components initialise once and are fast thereafter. If Windows blocked the file outright, confirm you downloaded it from the official source and try again. For anything beyond these, the dedicated troubleshooting guide covers the specific error messages in detail.
Next steps
With RetinaFace installed, point it at your own photos to see how it handles angles, distance and lighting. When you are ready to go further, the beginner guide explains what the output actually means, and the Python guide shows how to fold those detections into your own project.