ImageGlass is a lightweight, versatile image viewing application that is designed to take the place of Photo Viewer in Windows 10, 8, 7 and Vista, especially those installations that may have trouble displaying PNG and GIF files in Photo Viewer. Apple’s Photos app is included for free on all recently released Macs. It does a good job at organizing your photos, but its collection of photo enhancement tools leaves much to be desired. Hopefully, our selection of the best free programs for photo editing on Mac will help you choose the right app to suit all your creative needs. The lightweight and fast media browser and viewer for Mac OS X designed for Photographers, Graphic Artists and Web Designers. Featuring an extremely versatile and aesthetically pleasing interface, Lyn delivers an easy to use geotagging technology, image editing and a complete solution for sharing your photographs.
One of the biggest frustrating parts of moving from Windows to Mac started with the image preview tool. Such a simple function user experience that Windows Image Previewer is doing since XP, but Apple resists to adopt it. Once you open any image in the folder, you should be able to scroll through the next and previous images using arrow keys.
So default image preview app in Mac OS X (Seira or any previous version) SUCKS BIG TIME!
It works only if you select all images, right-click and hit preview, and then use up and down keys. That’s like 3 clicks painfully long process to what you can easily do with a single click. So I was on a hunt to find an app that can build Windows like image browsing with simple arrow keys, and simple zooming features with maybe some additional features.
Also Read:Fotojet Designer Mac App Review – For Designing Social Posts/Printables
Windows Like Best Photo Preview App for Mac OS X
The app I am going to suggest if called PhotoX, and its a completely free app on Mac App Store, but few steps mentioned below will make it run as good as windows preview tool and scrolling through images will be awesome again!
Download & Install the App
Head over to the Mac OS app store, and download our Windows like image browsing tool PhotoX.
Make it Default Image Preview App
Once you install the app, you have to make it a default preview app, otherwise, you have to right-click and select open with to work it properly.
Apple Photo Viewer
Go to any of your folder with photos.
Right-click (control-click) on any image.
Click on Get Info > Click on Open With > Select Photo X > Click on Change All.
This will give you a warning that you are changing the default app for that image format. Just confirm and you’re done.
Finishing Touch!
You’re not quite done yet. As the first image, you select, might be just a JPEG. And your new Windows-like photo viewer PhotoX only defaults for that format.
So just enlist the most formats you need. My requirement was just JPEGs and PNGs. So I opened another GET INFO tab, and set PhotoX as default previewer there.
You can do additional image formats, for which you need quick formatting.
So PhotoX, not only allows you to scroll images with side arrows just like in Windows, but you can zoom in and out with Up & Down Arrows, Rotate, Tilt, Flip image, all of the good stuff using this single app!
I simply loved a lot of things on Mac OS X, but this photo scrolling using arrow keys was the first thing I wanted to fix immediately. There are other free apps like Xee, or paid ones with even better options for editing like Adobe Lightroom, but for most basic functionality I thought it’s ridiculous to pay for an app, that does nothing but scrolling through images. So PhotoX is the best Image preview app for me at least.
Please share what other problems you might have faced with image previews, or if any other app you would like to recommend, in the comments section below.
If you are looking for a free HEIC viewer for your Windows or Mac machine, our post below lists some of the best viewer apps for you to view HEIC files on your computers. Read on to find out all the HEIC viewer apps.
While JPG, PNG, and many other image formats are widely supported on most desktop platforms and almost all the image viewers can open them, the same does not hold true for the HEIC images. Ever since Apple made HEIC as the default image format on its devices, people have constantly been looking for apps that can let them view this file type.
Fortunately, we have some HEIC viewers that should allow you to open this file format on both your Windows PCs and Mac machines. These HEIC viewers for Mac and Windows will easily open any file that ends with .heic extension. Let’s check these apps out in the following post.
Top 5 Free HEIC Viewer for Windows and Mac Review
1. iMobie HEIC Converter
HEIC Viewer #1 – AnyGet HEIC Viewer
If you want something that acts as both – a Windows and Mac HEIC viewer – iMobie HEIC Converter is the one for you. It is a web-based app that allows you to upload your HEIC files for them to be converted into the JPG format. Once the files are converted, they can be opened in any of the image viewers you have got on your machines.
The app is so great that it makes your hard-to-view HEIC files compatible with almost all the platforms out there. You would rarely find a device that does not support the JPG format.
Some of the features you get with the app are:
- Conversion to the most popular image format – JPG.
- Retain the quality of your image after conversion.
- Easy to upload your multiple HEIC files.
- Preserve the EXIF data for your images.
Here’s where it falls short:
- It does not let you view HEIC files without an Internet connection.
If you do not wish to install one more app just to view HEIC files on your computer, use AnyGet HEIC Viewer to view HEIC files without installing anything. It works right off your web browser.
2. Google Photos
Google Photos is a photo management service by Google that lets you upload and organize your photos on the web. The company knows users upload photos in various formats and so it has support for almost all the image formats out there including HEIC.
In order to use the service as a HEIC viewer, all you need to do is head over to their website and upload your HEIC photos. Soon as the photos are uploaded, you will be able to view them like any other images.
The pros of the app are:
- Bulk upload your HEIC files.
- It works on mobile devices as well.
- It provides 15GB of free storage.
The service has the following disadvantages as well:
- You need to pay if you exceed your free storage limit.
- It will not work without the Internet.
If you want access to your HEIC files on your smartphones as well, then Google Photos is an ideal solution for you.
3. Dropbox
HEIC Viewer #3 – Dropbox
Dropbox is yet another service where people upload and share their files including HEIC files. Keeping the users’ needs in mind, the service now allows you to view HEIC files on your Windows and Mac machines right in the Dropbox app.
All the HEIC files that you upload in your Dropbox account instantly become viewable on all of your devices regardless of whether they have the HEIC support or not.
Here’s what it has to offer you:
- Instantly view HEIC files on your computers.
- Works on both Windows and Mac machines.
Here are the cons of the service:
- It only offers 2GB of storage which runs out soon.
- If you do not mind paying a monthly fee to Dropbox for more storage space, Dropbox can be a good HEIC viewer for your Windows 10 and all of your other desktop machines.
4. HEIC to JPG
HEIC to JPG is yet another web-based app that lets you view your HEIC files by first converting them to a popular image format. All it requires you to do is go to their website, upload your files, and download the converted files to your computer.
It may not be an exact HEIC viewer but it gets the job done. Here are the advantages of using the app:
- It works right off the browser so you don’t need to install it
- It supports drag and drop.
Here are the disadvantages of using the app:
- You can only upload 50 files at a time.
- You may have privacy issues as you don’t know where your files go after they are uploaded.
If privacy is not a big concern for you, then HEIC to JPG is a worth-using app.
5. Phiewer Image Viewer
HEIC Viewer #5 – Phiewer Image Viewer
Image viewer apps are gradually adding support for the HEIC file format and Phiewer Image Viewer is one of the apps that has done it already. It supports viewing HEIC files by default and you can view your files with a few keystrokes using the app on your machine.
The following are the advantages of using the app:
- It has support for multiple image formats including HEIC.
- It lets you view EXIF data as well.
- You can view your HEIC files in a slideshow.
Disadvantages of the app are:
- It only works on Mac.
- The free version has limited features.
If you want an app with built-in support for HEIC, Phiewer Image Viewer is a good HEIC viewer for your Mac.
The Bottom Line
There may be a number of free HEIC viewers in the market but many of those come with ads and a lot of other items that clutter the interface. Our roundup above covers some of the nice HEIC viewers for you to view HEIC on your computers.