[macOS] Picview — a lightweight image viewer that feels closer to Windows Photos
[Problem] I built Picview for people who want a simple image viewer on macOS: open an image, browse with arrow keys, zoom with the mouse wheel, and close it quickly. [Comparison] Compared with Preview, Picview focuses more on fast image browsing. It supports arrow-key navigation, mouse-wheel zoom, trackpad gestures, folder browsing, pinned image/text windows, OCR, and 30+ formats including RAW. Core features: Fast image browsing Mouse wheel zoom / arrow-key navigation Pin images or text on the desktop OCR text recognition and translation JPG, PNG, WEBP, HEIC, PSD, GIF, AVIF, RAW support [Pricing] Free trial available. Some Pro features are limited in the free version. Pro: $12.99 lifetime purchase, or $4.99/year subscription. Website: https://picview.chitaner.com [Changelog] https://picview.chitaner.com/version/ [AI Disclaimer] None
已收集讨论
Sounds awesome. I will soon be scanning a ton of old photos for my family so this might make navigating them a lot quicker. Will definitely give it a try
Thanks! That sounds like a great use case. Picview should make browsing and checking scanned photos much quicker. Hope it helps with your family archive, and I’d love to hear any feedback after you try it.
Sounds interesting, the borderless feature is pretty cool
Thanks! I’m glad you like it! The goal was to keep the UI minimal while making navigation feel really natural. Whether you prefer the mouse, keyboard, or Mac trackpad gestures, you can browse images quickly without thinking about the controls.
Looks very slick and keen to give it a try. Just a few things; in your previous thread you said you used AI for Code Completion, but now you're saying None... should be clear on that. Looks like you've been working on it for a few years based on the Release Notes, great work! You should also cross-promote your PicSee app as well and offer them as a bundle deal - I'm keen on both... and would get PicSee in a heartbeat if it had a scanner import / batch function. Is there any way to buy licences outside of the App Store for a discount? Like via Gumroad or your website?
Thanks a lot! Yes, Picview has been in development for quite a while, so I’m really glad you noticed the release notes. Good suggestion about cross-promoting PicSee and maybe offering a bundle deal — I’ll definitely think about that. Also, PicSee already supports scanner import and batch import, so it may fit your workflow well. For licenses, Picview is currently only available through the Mac App Store. I don’t have Gumroad or website licensing yet, so unfortunately there isn’t an outside-App-Store discount option at the moment.
How do you compare it to the same named open-source app -> https://github.com/Ruben2776/PicView
Good question! They are actually quite different projects with the same name. Ruben2776’s PicView is a great cross-platform image viewer with many powerful features like customization, batch tools, archive/comic support, and image processing. My Picview is focused on the macOS experience — bringing back the Windows Photo Viewer feeling with native Mac gestures, keyboard/mouse controls, RAW browsing, folder navigation, OCR, and pinned image/text windows. So they overlap in the basic “fast image viewer” idea, but the focus is different: theirs is a powerful general-purpose viewer, while mine is a Mac-native everyday photo browsing tool.
How long is the free trial
7 days.
Looks interesting. Can you rename files from within the app as you navigate through images in a folder? That's something I really appreciate about XnView MP (by pressing F2 while the image is showing in the viewer), and I wish Pixea+ could do.
Thanks for asking! Currently, Picview doesn’t support renaming files directly from the viewer. It’s a good workflow idea though, especially for people managing large photo folders. I’ll keep it in mind for future improvements.
For anyone landing here who just wants faster image browsing on a Mac, the free baselines are worth knowing first: Quick Look (select files in Finder, hit Space, arrow through) already does instant folder browsing, and qView (open-source, universal binary) is a dedicated fast viewer with arrow-key nav that's basically Quick Look speed with more controls. Where Picview looks like it actually earns its place over those is the extras - OCR + translation, pin image/text to the desktop, and RAW/PSD + 30-format support. I'd lead with those rather than "faster than Preview," since the free options already have "fast" covered. One heads-up: there's an established open-source "PicView" (Ruben2776) - different platform, but you'll fight it on search and naming, so worth being aware of.
Thanks, this is really fair feedback. I agree that Quick Look and qView already cover the basic “fast image browsing” use case very well. Picview is not trying to replace Quick Look for everyone — the goal is more to provide a lightweight Mac image viewer with some workflow extras around browsing, such as OCR + translation, pinned image/text windows, RAW/PSD support, and broader format handling. Good point about leading with those differences instead of only saying “faster than Preview.” I’ll adjust the positioning to make that clearer. And yes, I’m aware of the open-source PicView project. They are different projects on different platforms, but the naming/search issue is definitely something I need to keep in mind.
I have been missing windows photo viewer so much since switching to Mac, thanks for this!
the RAW support is the part that stands out, most lightweight viewers can't handle it. is it quick flipping through a folder full of big RAW files, or does it lag loading each one?
glws bro!
Hi 👋 I use another Preview app for my images, but your other app (Longshot) still remains the best of all, for me, so far 👍. It's, I'll be brief, MAGNIFIC. It's a shame it was never featured on Reddit. I'm taking this opportunity to thank you for creating it 🤝.
这条评论已在来源处删除。
Yes, exactly. It works like an always-on-top snippet, so you can keep an image or text visible while working in another app.
这条评论已在来源处删除。
这条评论已在来源处删除。
Yes, thousands of photos should be fine. Picview loads images on demand, so it doesn’t need to process the whole folder at once. I’ve tested it with large photo folders and RAW files, and it remains smooth.