diff --git a/backend/app/services/nextcloud_dav.py b/backend/app/services/nextcloud_dav.py
index e978f91..143d64f 100644
--- a/backend/app/services/nextcloud_dav.py
+++ b/backend/app/services/nextcloud_dav.py
@@ -344,6 +344,35 @@ def fetch_fileid(user: User, abs_path: str) -> Optional[int]:
     return int(m.group(1)) if m else None
 
 
+def get_preview_bytes(
+    user: User, fileid: int, x: int, y: int
+) -> Optional[bytes]:
+    """Sync sibling of `get_preview_async` for callers in non-async
+    contexts (e.g. the vision celery worker, which is sync).
+
+    Returns the preview body on success, None on 404 / non-success /
+    missing credentials. Caller is expected to feed the bytes into
+    PIL or similar.
+    """
+    try:
+        nc_user, app_pw = _credentials_for(user)
+    except NextcloudCredentialsMissing:
+        return None
+    url = f"{_base_url()}/index.php/core/preview"
+    params = {
+        "fileId": str(fileid),
+        "x": str(x),
+        "y": str(y),
+        "a": "true",
+        "forceIcon": "false",
+    }
+    with _client((nc_user, app_pw)) as c:
+        resp = c.get(url, params=params)
+    if resp.status_code == 404 or not resp.is_success:
+        return None
+    return resp.content
+
+
 async def fetch_memories_info_async(
     user: User, fileid: int
 ) -> Optional[dict]:
diff --git a/backend/app/tasks/thumbs.py b/backend/app/tasks/thumbs.py
index 8111f37..83eb9ea 100644
--- a/backend/app/tasks/thumbs.py
+++ b/backend/app/tasks/thumbs.py
@@ -47,13 +47,13 @@ THUMB_SIZES = {
     'large': settings.thumbnails.large
 }
 
-# Sizes the worker actually writes to /data/thumbs. We used to write all
-# three, but the API now proxies Nextcloud's /core/preview for `small`
-# and `large` — only `medium` survives on disk because the vision
-# pipeline (app.tasks.vision) still loads it from there. When vision
-# moves to NC previews too, this set drops to empty and the file
-# pipeline can be deleted entirely.
-WORKER_THUMB_SIZES = {'medium'}
+# Sizes the worker writes to /data/thumbs. Empty set since Phase 4 —
+# the API serves all sizes via Nextcloud's /core/preview proxy, and
+# the vision worker also fetches NC previews on demand instead of
+# reading a local cache. generate_thumbnails still runs the decode-
+# and-pHash side-effect (perceptual dedup is mule-only and needs the
+# original-resolution pixels) but no longer touches the disk.
+WORKER_THUMB_SIZES: set[str] = set()
 
 def get_thumb_path(photo_id: str, size: str, user_id: str = None) -> str:
     """Get the path for a thumbnail file.
diff --git a/backend/app/tasks/vision.py b/backend/app/tasks/vision.py
index 7976842..9796930 100644
--- a/backend/app/tasks/vision.py
+++ b/backend/app/tasks/vision.py
@@ -45,7 +45,76 @@ def _get_sync_session() -> Session:
     return sessionmaker(bind=_get_sync_engine())()
 
 
+# CLIP was trained against 640px medium thumbs that the on-disk
+# pipeline used to produce. Now we ask Nextcloud's preview endpoint
+# for the same edge size so the classifier sees the same input
+# distribution.
+_VISION_PREVIEW_PX = 640
+
+
 def _load_thumb(photo_id: str, size: str = "medium") -> np.ndarray | None:
+    """Load the photo's RGB pixels into a numpy array for inference.
+
+    Primary path: ask Nextcloud's `/index.php/core/preview` for a
+    640px preview via the sync helper. Replaces the disk read of
+    `/data/thumbs/{photo_id}/medium.webp` so the on-disk pipeline
+    can retire entirely.
+
+    Disk fallback (transitional): if NC has no preview or no
+    credentials, look for the medium.webp the old pipeline wrote.
+    Goes dead once `generate_thumbnails` stops writing files.
+    """
+    from io import BytesIO
+    from app.models import Photo
+    from app.models.user import User
+    from app.services.nextcloud_dav import get_preview_bytes
+
+    user_id: str | None = None
+    fileid: int | None = None
+    session = _get_sync_session()
+    try:
+        row = session.execute(
+            select(Photo.user_id, Photo.nextcloud_fileid).where(
+                Photo.id == photo_id
+            )
+        ).one_or_none()
+        if row:
+            user_id, fileid = row[0], row[1]
+    finally:
+        session.close()
+
+    if user_id and fileid:
+        session = _get_sync_session()
+        try:
+            owner = session.execute(
+                select(User).where(User.id == user_id)
+            ).scalar_one_or_none()
+        finally:
+            session.close()
+        if owner is not None and owner.nextcloud_app_password_enc:
+            try:
+                body = get_preview_bytes(
+                    owner, fileid, _VISION_PREVIEW_PX, _VISION_PREVIEW_PX,
+                )
+            except Exception as e:
+                logger.warning(
+                    "NC preview fetch failed for %s: %s", photo_id, e
+                )
+                body = None
+            if body:
+                try:
+                    img = Image.open(BytesIO(body)).convert("RGB")
+                    img.load()
+                    arr = np.array(img)
+                    img.close()
+                    return arr
+                except Exception as e:
+                    logger.warning(
+                        "NC preview decode failed for %s: %s", photo_id, e
+                    )
+
+    # Legacy disk fallback — transitional, dead once thumbs.py stops
+    # writing /data/thumbs.
     thumb_base = Path("/data/thumbs")
     thumb_path = thumb_base / photo_id / f"{size}.webp"
     if not thumb_path.exists():
@@ -53,7 +122,7 @@ def _load_thumb(photo_id: str, size: str = "medium") -> np.ndarray | None:
         if matches:
             thumb_path = matches[0]
         else:
-            logger.warning("Thumbnail not found: %s", thumb_path)
+            logger.warning("Thumbnail not found anywhere for %s", photo_id)
             return None
     try:
         img = Image.open(thumb_path).convert("RGB")