9 Best Image Viewer Apps for Mac [Updated 2024]

While the default image viewer app on Mac — Preview — suffices the requirements of most users to a certain degree, there are certain instances when a user needs more advanced options to interact better with the image. And sadly, at such times, Preview fails to deliver. So, for those on the lookout for alternatives to Preview, here are some of our recommendations for the best image viewer apps for Mac.

Best Image Viewer Apps for Mac

1. Pixea

Highlights

• Cost: Free.
• Formats Supported: Wide range, including JPEG, PNG, GIF, TIFF, RAW, and more.
• User Interface: Modern and intuitive.
• Editing Tools: Basic editing like crop, rotate, and colour adjustments.
• Metadata Support: Detailed metadata viewing.
• Slideshow: Customizable slideshows.
• Unique features: Fast and efficient.

Pixea is a simple alternative to the built-in Mac Preview that offers a modern user interface compared to Preview. It comes with enhanced metadata support that offers detailed views, allows customization of slideshow settings, and supports a wide range of file formats, including RAW format. Pixea is free and available directly from the Mac App Store at no additional cost.

You can also set up customized keyboard shortcuts, and the app recently gained the ability to remove unwanted images from the selection (Available in the paid version). Pixea is a great option for anyone looking for an alternative to Mac Preview with useful additional features.

Pros

• User-friendly and visually appealing.
• Built-in video player
• Allows personalization of slideshow settings.
• Quick and responsive even with large files.

Cons

• It is limited to basic editing features.
• Shortcuts and object removal are limited to paid users.

Download Pixea

2. Phiewer

Highlights

• Cost: Free with in-app purchases.
• Formats Supported: Images, audio, and video.
• User Interface: Smooth transitions and quick controls.
• Editing Tools: Basic; detailed EXIF data view.
• Slideshow: Customizable settings.
• Unique Features: View all media types in a single window.

Phiewer is a pretty standard image viewer app for Mac. In addition to allowing you to view images, the app also gives you the option to view audio and video files as well. The app is folder-based, so whatever file you decide to view on it, you just need to select its parent folder, and the app will do its job, with all files available to browse in one window.

What’s good about Phiewer is that the app offers smooth transitions and is fluid when switching between different viewports. It has some quick controls, too, along with a bunch of shortcuts such as browsing, play/pause, rotate, etc., to allow for easy access. Besides, you can view detailed information about a file, such as its EXIF data, to better understand it overall.

The app gives you slideshow options and allows you to change different settings according to your requirements. Some of the settings you can tweak include the speed of each slide change, transition effects, background music, etc. Moreover, the app supports various image, video, and audio formats, making it a one-stop solution for all sorts of media browsing. It’s a very good Preview alternative on Mac.

Pros

• Supports images, audio, and video.
• Smooth transitions and fluid performance.
• Quick controls and shortcuts.
• Detailed EXIF data view.
• Customizable slideshow settings

Cons

• Basic editing tools.
• Outdated Interface.

Freemium (In-app purchase)
Download Phiewer

3. Xee³

Highlights

• Cost: $3.99.
• Formats Supported: Various image formats and animations.
• User Interface: Simple and convenient.
• Editing Tools: Basic file operations.
• Metadata Support: Extensive via Image: ExifTool
• Unique Features: TouchBar support for newer Macs.

If you are looking for an image viewer that displays images without offering a bunch of other options — basically, an alternative to the Preview app — the Xee³ is one such option. The app, with its convenient image-viewing prowess, allows you to easily browse the contents of different folders and perform operations like moving or copying files around.

It supports various image formats and has animations for the supported ones to make your image viewing experience even better. Furthermore, it supports the TouchBar, so if you happen to own a newer generation Mac that has a TouchBar, you can pretty much use the touch controls to perform various operations.

Talking about other useful features, Xee³ provides you with metadata for different image files, for which it relies on the Image:: ExifTool — one of the largest metadata libraries out on the internet — to offer more in-depth information about your image.

Pros

• Simple image viewer with basic features.
• Easy browsing and file operations.
• Supports various image formats and animations.
• TouchBar support 0n Supported Mac.
• Extensive metadata via Image: ExifTool.

Cons

• Limited to basic functions.
• No advanced editing features.

Paid ($3.99)

Download Xee³

4. ImageOne

Highlights

• Cost: Free with in-app purchases.
• Formats Supported: Images, videos, and audio.
• User Interface: Clean and simple.
• Editing Tools: Basic; includes batch conversion.
• Organization: Quick preview and slideshow.
• Unique Features: Comprehensive multimedia management and editing.

ImageOne is another Preview alternative with its clean and simple browsing and multimedia management offerings. The app is fairly easy to use and allows you to better organize your images, videos, and audio in one place. It offers a quick preview and a full-screen slideshow to browse large libraries of media on your Mac with just a few clicks.

Besides browsing through different media files, you can also perform different operations on the files, such as rotate, flip, mirror, copy/paste, delete, rename, and more. You also get the option to view EXIF data for images, which can come in handy when you need to understand different properties of the images to get a better idea about their quality.

What’s more, with ImageOne, you can edit different aspects of an image to tweak it to your liking. Among these, some of the settings you can alter include brightness, contrast, exposure, hue, sharpness, etc, alongside some conversion around formats, sizing, and scaling using the built-it batch conversion tool. One of our favourite image viewer apps for Mac.

Pros

• Clean and simple interface.
• Organizes images, videos, and audio.
• Quick preview and slideshow options.
• Basic editing tools and EXIF data view.
• Built-in batch conversion tool.

Cons

• Limited advanced editing features.

Freemium (In-app purchase)
Download ImageOne

5. ApolloOne

Highlights

• Cost: Free with in-app purchases.
• Formats Supported: Images with EXIF and AF points.
• User Interface: Smooth, responsive, with face detection.
• Editing Tools: Basic; supports sRGB, AdobeRGB, ProPhotoRGB.
• Slideshow: File caching for quick browsing.
• Unique Features: Displays camera AF points and detects faces for detailed focus checks

With ApolloOne, the developer suggests using OS features such as multi-threading, Grand Central Dispatch, and Core Image graphics to offer a smooth and responsive app. This essentially means that while browsing through different images, viewing a slideshow, or editing images, the app does not stutter and instead provides a smooth experience.

You also get controls for altering different settings to your liking and have the option to view EXIF data for more comprehensive information about the image.

The app also displays camera AF points and detects faces to allow you to magnify them and check on the focus. Moreover, you get a context menu for functions that you frequently access, along with options to send an image to an external editor, in case you wish to make some changes. Thus saving you a few steps.

Moreover, ApolloOne offers a range of other features, including file caching for a quick and instant photo browsing experience, support for a different colour palette like sRGB, AdobeRGB, and ProPhotoRGB, and the ability to capture JPEG from a video.

Pros

• Smooth and responsive performance.
• EXIF data and camera AF points view.
• Face detection and magnification.
• File caching for quick browsing.
• Supports sRGB, AdobeRGB, ProPhotoRGB.

Cons

• Complex interface.
• Occasional performance issues with large libraries.

Freemium (In-app purchase)
Download ApolloOne

6. Lyn

Highlights

• Cost: Free with in-app purchases.
• Formats Supported: Images with basic editing.
• User Interface: Lightweight and beautiful.
• Editing Tools: Adjust brightness, colour, contrast, etc.
• Slideshow: Presets and batch processing.
• Unique Features: Seamless sharing to online channels like Flickr and Dropbox.

Lyn is a simple and lightweight media browser for Mac with a pleasing interface that is clean and beautiful, to say the least. Besides image viewing, the app also allows you to edit different aspects of an image, such as brightness, colour temperature, contrast, highlights, shadows, colour tones, and more, to tweak it to your liking.

Its interface includes sharing options, which provide quick access to sharing files across different online channels like Flickr, Dropbox, and more. Like some of the other image viewer app suggestions on this list, Lyn also provides EXIF data to give you extensive information about your image.

What’s more, the app comes with a bunch of presets and batch processing to allow for quick and basic editing when needed. It also provides a fullscreen slideshow, with options to change some of its settings like transition speed, animation, and background music.

Pros

• Simple and lightweight.
• Clean and beautiful interface.
• Basic editing tools and sharing options.
• Detailed EXIF data.
• Presets and batch processing.

Cons

• Basic editing features.

Freemium (In-app purchase)
Download Lyn

7. qView

Highlights

• Cost: Free.
• Formats Supported: Images; open-source.
• User Interface: Minimalist and elegant.
• Editing Tools: Basic operations like rotate and mirror.
• Performance: Low resource usage.
• Unique Features: Open-source with customizable options; minimal resource usage.

Compared to the other image viewer apps we’ve recommended in this article, qView is quite different. For starters, it is open-source software, meaning that, in addition to using the app as it is, you can also modify and make changes to the software as per your requirements, granted you have knowledge of how to.

The app takes a minimalist approach with its interface that is simple yet elegant and offers a range of functionalities without being too cluttered. Although the app claims to be minimalist in itself, it does not compromise on its functionalities and offers some basic operations such as rotating, mirroring the image, and more.

The developer of view suggests it be less hungry on the machine resources like the CPU and the memory, which is a good thing, considering how crucial it can get if you have a less powerful machine. Moreover, you also get a myriad of configurable options to change different preferences for the app and make it a more customizable experience. Easily the best free Preview alternative on Mac.

Pros

• Open-source and free.
• Minimalist and elegant interface.
• Basic operations like rotation and mirror.
• Low resource usage.
• Highly configurable options.

Cons

• No advanced editing or organizational tools.
• Requires technical knowledge for customization.

Free
Download qView

8. XnViewMP

Highlights

• Cost: Free, with a paid version available.
• Formats Supported: Over 500 image formats.
• User Interface: Multiple viewing options and easy to use.
• Editing Tools: Basic editing; Supports batch conversion.
• Slideshow: Image comparison and resizing.
• Unique Features: Supports an extensive number of formats; powerful batch conversion.

XnViewMP is another image viewer app for Mac that doubles as an image management and image resize solution, offering a one-stop solution for various image operations. It has an easy-to-use interface, so you can browse and organize your images much simpler. Further, it also provides different views (thumbnail, full-screen, filmstrip), slideshow, and image comparison, among other options, to assist you in a better image viewing experience.

Moreover, just like other apps in the list, you can view EXIF data for different images and also perform a bunch of operations such as resizing, rotating, and cropping, along with brightness, contrast, and colour temperature tweaking.

What’s more, XnViewMP claims to offer support for over 500 image formats and batch conversion (downloaded as a plug-in), making it one of the most advanced image-viewing apps for Mac.

Pros

• Supports over 500 image formats.
• Easy-to-use interface with multiple views.
• Slideshow and image comparison options.
• Comprehensive metadata and basic editing tools.
• Batch conversion and resizing.

Cons

• Batch conversion needs a plug-in.
• Outdated interface.

Free, Paid
Download XnViewMP

9. Adobe Bridge

Highlights

• Formats Supported: PNG, JPG, RAW, PSD, and more.
• User Interface: Rich in features, may be complex for new users.
• Editing Tools: Basic tools like crop and resize; advanced editing requires Photoshop.
• Organization: Advanced tools for managing folders, albums, keywords, ratings, and labels.
• Metadata Support: View and edit EXIF, IPTC, and XMP metadata.
• Batch Processing: Rename, resize, and convert multiple files at once.
• Cost: Free; advanced features available with Adobe Creative Cloud subscription.

Adobe Bridge is the best option if you use Adobe Creative Cloud or manage large libraries of images. It offers advanced image organization features, supports a wide variety of formats, including RAW and PSD, and provides comprehensive metadata viewing and editing. The biggest highlight of the app is the ability to batch process, where you can rename, resize, and convert multiple images at once.

The user interface can be complex for users coming from macOS Preview or using Adobe apps for the first time. Also, I have noticed some lag in the app, especially when loading images and switching between the apps.

That said, the app is the best option for creators or someone who is already using Adobe applications and wants an advanced way to manage all images. It offers batch image processing and advanced features with easy integration with other Adobe apps like Photoshop for editing and more.

Pros

• Versatile Format Support
• Advanced image organization support.
• Comprehensive options to view and edit metadata.
• Batch Processing
• Works seamlessly with other Adobe Creative Cloud apps.

Cons

• It can be overwhelming for beginners
• It may slow down with very large image libraries.
• Requires Photoshop for more advanced edits.
• Less integration with other cloud services.

Download Adobe Bridge

That’s it for this listicle!
Those were some of our recommendations for the best image viewer apps for Mac. What apps do you find useful or use yourself? Let us know in the comments below.