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tie app

imgview

Point it at a folder.

A fast local image viewer that needs no library at all: folders, archives and video, with a justified grid and an EXIF overlay.

Stable LinuxWindowsmacOSAndroid GitHub ↗
Install Manual
imgview gallery · 1280×800
imgview's gallery: a justified grid of public-domain paintings and NASA photographs, with file names underneath each tile

A folder of mixed artwork and photographs, at 2x. No library, no import, no server.

Highlights

The parts that matter.

A folder is enough
No import, no database. Pass a directory, a file or an archive.
Justified rows
A gallery that fills the width, paginated at 500 images and cached on disk.
Archives open like folders
zip, rar, tar, 7z, cbr and cbz, with a content preview on the tile.
Video in place
libmpv playback, frame thumbnails and a frame strip on the tile.
The metadata you want
EXIF and file info on I, without leaving the image.
Keys that are yours
Every shortcut is rebindable, and one key can run your own command.
Zero setup

Point it at a folder.

imgview is the app you open before you have decided to organise anything. Give it a directory, a single image, a video or an archive. It reads the folder, builds a gallery and gets out of the way.

  • Justified rows that fill the window, paginated at 500 images and cached on disk.
  • Folder tiles show a preview and swipe through up to ten images inside.
  • No database. Nothing to configure, nothing to back up, nothing to migrate.
imgview imgview
A single photograph filling imgview's window, letterboxed against the dark background

The single-image view: fill the window, or show it at original size.

Information

The details, on demand.

Press I for the image information overlay: camera, exposure, dimensions and the file itself. It loads asynchronously, so large files do not block the next image.

  • EXIF and file info without leaving the viewer.
  • Zoom, pan, rotate and fullscreen, all from the keyboard or the mouse.
  • Rebindable keys for everything, including one key that runs your own command on the file.
imgview imgview
The image information overlay in imgview, showing file metadata over a photograph

The info overlay: EXIF, dimensions and the path, loaded without blocking the image.

Files

Archives open like folders.

zip, rar, tar, 7z, cbr and cbz are all just sources of images. Open one and imgview treats it as a directory, with the archive's own cover as the tile preview. Video is played by libmpv, with frame thumbnails on the tile and a strip of frames for a quick scan. Build with -tags nompv and the video code disappears.

  • Comic readers: cbz/cbr pages in reading order.
  • Android uses the system folder picker; the same gallery, a touch-first layout.
  • One binary, no service, no tie connection required.
keys · defaults
J / ↓  scroll down        K / ↑  scroll up
← / →  previous / next    S      original size
H / L  rotate left / right X      fit window
N      filenames          I      image info
T      tag bar            E      run your command
F      fullscreen         Esc    back / quit

The gallery engine

imgview and tie-view share the same gallery/ package: the justified layout, the thumbnail pipeline, pagination, the tile updater, the info overlay and the drawer. tie-fm uses it for its preview pane, and tie-audio for the cover wall. That is why a fix to scrolling or HiDPI tiles lands in every app at once.

Where it is

  • Status: stable enough to use every day
  • Versioning: tie-gui is released from the repo; the apps are built from source.
  • Android uses the system folder picker; no tie connection is required.

Works with

  • tie — Tag it. Find it. Mount it.
  • tie-fm — Two panes. Both worlds.
  • tie-audio — Your library, on shelves.
  • tie-view — Tag at the speed of sight.
  • tie-browser — Pages made of your library.
  • anneal — The coding agent that anneals.

Try it with your own files.

A single binary, a local library and no account. Keep the originals where they are.

Install Read the docs Source ↗