PicView 5.1.3

The built-in Windows viewer does fine until you open a WebP from a browser download, a HEIC photo from an iPhone or an AVIF image from a modern website.

PicView is a free, open-source viewer built to open those files straight away, on Windows and on Mac.

It is fast, it shows no pop-ups or tracking, and version 5.1.3 adds smoother galleries and Motion Photo playback.

What PicView Actually Does

PicView opens an image and gets out of the way. You move through a folder with the arrow keys, zoom with the mouse wheel, and hide the toolbar when you want only the picture.

• Tabs. Keep several images or folders open in one window and switch between them like browser tabs.
• Gallery. A thumbnail strip you can dock to the side or open full screen.
• Comics and archives. Read pictures straight from ZIP, RAR and CBZ files without unpacking them.
• Quick tools. Crop, rotate, flip, add effects, compress, and batch resize or convert images.
• File details. View and edit EXIF information, and see where a photo was taken on a map.
• Your look. Dark and light themes, a custom background colour and keyboard shortcuts.

Microsoft Photos has improved, but it is built as a photo library. PicView is a utility viewer, closer to what Windows Photo Viewer used to be.

Formats It Opens Without Extra Codecs

Animated GIF and WebP play back, and multi-page TIFF files are supported. For 7Z and CB7 archives, you also need 7-Zip or WinRAR installed.

PicView decodes these itself, so you don't need the Windows codec packs to use it. If you also want thumbnails in File Explorer, install the HEIF Image Extensions for iPhone photos.

The Raw Image Extension does the same for camera RAW files, and the WebP Codec for WebP.

What's New in PicView 5.1 and 5.1.3

• Motion Photos. Live Photos from phones now play inside PicView.
• A much faster gallery that stays smooth with hundreds or thousands of images and uses less memory.
• Quicker archives. Files are extracted in batches with a progress indicator, which helps over a network.
• A redesigned light theme with clearer icons and better contrast.
• Fixes for upside-down Windows thumbnails, a crash on early clicks and an unresponsive open dialog on Mac.

The 5.1.2 update fixes thumbnails when the gallery is docked to the side, and adds the FFmpeg file Windows needs for Motion Photos. The full list is in the PicView 5.1.3 release notes.

Which File to Download

PicView vs Other Free Viewers

IrfanView is powerful and tiny, but needs its plugins pack before it opens AVIF or HEIC reliably. XnView reads a huge range of formats and adds a full photo browser, at the cost of a busier interface.

FastStone Image Viewer is stronger for slideshows, deeper editing and organising photos. ImageGlass is the closest match to PicView in spirit - modern, minimal and open source - so try both and keep the one you prefer.

nomacs is built for comparing images side by side. JPEGView is an even smaller portable viewer for quick looks.

Who Should Look Elsewhere

The tell that you need more than PicView: you want to tag, rate and organise a large photo collection, not just open files.

• Big photo libraries: XnView or FastStone Image Viewer.
• Converting whole folders with many rules: XnConvert.
• Stuck on a specific format: our guides on how to view WebP files on Windows and how to view AVIF files on Windows.
• iPhone photos that won't open: why iPhone HEIC photos won't open on Windows.

Browse more options in our Image Viewers category and the wider Graphics Tools section.

Quick questions

Download PicView 5.1.3 and see how it handles your images, or tell us how you got on if you have used it before.