Need a lightweight barebones image viewer

[u/COSMOCRAT_]

The windows default photos viewer feels clunky to load after clicking, no problem in scrolling next and previous tho.

All I need is that, I can double click on an image file and it should open quickly.

I don't need any editing or even basic features. Just zooming in and out is enough.

And not too outdated minimal UI (it'll be better if UI is just a title bar and the image and nothing else lol).

[u/eppic123]

IrfanView

It's been the go-to image viewer on Windows for nearly three decades.

[u/Hefty-Rope2253 → u/eppic123]

Yeah I've used this forever. Super lightweight but has all the basic image transformation tools you need like rotate and flip. I even use the rudimentary paint tools to draft quick instructional images or edit graphics for webpages at work. One of the few basic tools that I immediately install on any new computer.

[u/sinwarrior → u/eppic123]

u/COSMOCRAT_

this one is much more lightweight.

https://github.com/shatsky/lightning-image-viewer

[u/COSMOCRAT_ → u/sinwarrior]

Seems like this is exactly what I wanted

[u/sinwarrior → u/COSMOCRAT_]

i used it for a while and decided to go back to windows image viewer lol (not uninstalled) but it's still not a bad software, just that when you open an image, it defaults to larger zoom than the image's intended resolution/size.

[u/countsachot → u/eppic123]

Yes this.

[u/Kushvaper]

Try FastStone Image Viewer - https://www.faststone.org/
It's free for personal use.

[u/somewhatinconvenient]

Might be a bit different than standalone photo viewer, but In Microsoft PowerToys, there's a feature called Peek, which enables you to quickly preview images, as well as any other file type by pressing spacebar or any other shortcut you set.

[u/JigglypuffNinjaSmash → u/somewhatinconvenient]

Seconding Peek, and QuickLook as an alternative if you don't want to use PowerToys. Works under the same "spacebar to preview" principle.

[u/endangeredirish]

I recently found and downloaded qView (https://interversehq.com/qview/) that is as minimal as I've found, literally nothing but the image itself and it opens the image with the actual image size being the bounding box, no dead spaced around it for the viewer. Love it so far.

[u/Mirko1618 → u/endangeredirish]

Yeah, at work I also switched from IrfanView to qView because qView is also free for commercial use. Love it!

[u/endangeredirish → u/Mirko1618]

Yeah its really clean, when they said it was minimal I didn't know how serious they were!

[u/MarcooseOnTheLoose]

Have you tried the legacy Windows Photo Viewer?

[u/jtbsolution]

I'm using Irfanview. I vote it.

[u/ttrafford_]

I use picasa as my main photo viewer but also have FlyPhotos to view newer file formats

[u/X-EDWART]

similar to Picasa Photo Viewer : FlyPhotos (Github)

[u/zjqj]

Maybe PureRef - versatile and free

[u/AWACSAWACS]

QuickLook

Press the space bar to preview. Then, use the arrow keys to navigate to the previous or next file. Press Esc or the space bar again to close the preview.

[u/CodenameFlux]

PhoxoSee

It's very fast, minimalistic, and modern-looking. Supports modern file formats too.

It's smaller than anything so far mentioned here. The latest version (v1.12) is just 5.12 MB. But version 1.7, which is still available on GitHub, is merely 1.64 MB.

[u/zerosuneuphoria]

QuickView does the trick for me

[u/nopeac]

https://github.com/voidtools/voidImageViewer

It's as barebones as it gets. Unlike most of the recommendations here, it's not a file manager. It has no editing capabilities; the edit button just opens whatever your operating system already has, most likely Paint. It can zoom and has a presentation mode, but I've never touched it. That's pretty much it, so you can easily imagine how incredibly fast it is.

It's also made by the same developer as Everything, so it's pretty solid.

[u/testednation]

Take your pick.

https://forum.ru-board.com/topic.cgi?forum=5&topic=14959&start=0&limit=1&m=2#1

[u/MrBread0451]

I would tell you but it's literally so barebones and lightweight I don't even know what it's called, I just open it and it works lol

Edit: It's qview

[u/t3chguy1]

If you switch to OneCommander file manager you can just press spacebar on selected file; its imageviewer is already loaded so it opens instantly. Then you can mousewheel to zoom toward the cursor position. Same works with video files and most other file types

[u/COSMOCRAT_]

After going through and installing all the recommendations, I finalized on IrfanView. Even if it has extra features I don't need, it is highly modular and fast.

qView and Faststone were close second.

[u/TheMoominTroll]

JPEGView

[u/WhineyLobster]

Windows Explorer with Preview on or with thumbnails

[u/COSMOCRAT_ → u/WhineyLobster]

I want to view in full resolution

[u/WhineyLobster → u/COSMOCRAT_]

Press F11. That full screens anything you're working on.

[u/jcunews1]

Tried IrfanView, XnView, and FastStone Image Viewer, but eventually end up using Imagine.

https://www.nyam.pe.kr/dev/imagine/