diff --git a/core/dr-catalog/src/merge.rs b/core/dr-catalog/src/merge.rs
index fcc4947..2ecdb58 100644
--- a/core/dr-catalog/src/merge.rs
+++ b/core/dr-catalog/src/merge.rs
@@ -1081,6 +1081,8 @@ fn match_faces(tx: &Connection) -> Result<std::collections::HashMap<i64, i64>, C
 
     type Boxed = (i64, f32, f32, f32, f32);
 
+    ensure_face_box_index(tx);
+
     // Local faces, grouped by the photograph's cross-device id.
     let mut local: std::collections::HashMap<(i64, String), Vec<Boxed>> =
         std::collections::HashMap::new();
@@ -1153,6 +1155,30 @@ fn match_faces(tx: &Connection) -> Result<std::collections::HashMap<i64, i64>, C
     Ok(map)
 }
 
+/// The index the local half of [`match_faces`] is read from: every column
+/// it asks of a face, so the walk touches no `faces` row.
+///
+/// A face row is eight kilobytes and `model_id` sits past the embedding, so
+/// reading it opened the row's overflow pages: 38 ms of every sync pass on
+/// the reference library, to read 19,000 boxes. From this index, 8 ms. The
+/// other device's half has no such index to use -- it is a snapshot made by
+/// whatever build that device runs -- but its rows have had their crops
+/// stripped, which is most of their width.
+///
+/// Created on first use rather than by a migration, like
+/// `keywords::ensure_term_index` and for the reason given there: a new
+/// schema version makes older builds refuse this catalog's snapshot, and an
+/// extra index is invisible to them. The first merge after an upgrade pays
+/// for building it, once. A failure is logged and the merge goes on reading
+/// rows, as it did before.
+fn ensure_face_box_index(tx: &Connection) {
+    if let Err(e) = tx.execute_batch(
+        "CREATE INDEX IF NOT EXISTS main.faces_box ON faces(image_id, model_id, x, y, w, h);",
+    ) {
+        log::warn!("merge: could not create faces_box: {e}");
+    }
+}
+
 /// Intersection over union of two `(x, y, w, h)` boxes.
 fn iou(a: (f32, f32, f32, f32), b: (f32, f32, f32, f32)) -> f32 {
     let x0 = a.0.max(b.0);