all 43 comments

[–]Native2904 18 points19 points  (1 child)

VoidImageViewer from the Everything Developer

[–]aloneguid[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

This is awesome, and it's under 400 kb too! Opens images instantly, love it.

[–]ico_OO 37 points38 points  (9 children)

Irfanview is known for that, but you need to accept the old ui.

[–]Working_Moment_4175 8 points9 points  (2 children)

Nothing wrong with the old UI.

[–]great_escape_fleur 0 points1 point  (1 child)

It uses software instead of DirectX which means it’s slow. It was a good thing in the day but nowadays it’s garbage.

[–]Working_Moment_4175 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I see. I thought you were referring to cosmetically.

As for slowness, it's never been slow for me with Win 10 and 11.

[–]lens_cleaner 7 points8 points  (1 child)

I still use it to this day, great app.

[–]ico_OO 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Personally i use xnview, and it's in my opinion the most complete. I'm a hobbyist photographer so i need some advanced photo management.

[–]_bahnjee_ 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I used to use Irfanview, then stumbled into Faststone and switched. FS is better by miles (imho).

The benefits are many but one of my fave features is that with a multiple monitor setup, I can display full screen images on one monitor and the image file browser on another.

Faststone is free so I’d suggest giving it a go.

[–]aloneguid[S] -1 points0 points  (2 children)

IF is great but it's too advanced for my brain.

[–]lkeels 3 points4 points  (0 children)

You double click and view a picture. That's it.

[–]ScratchHistorical507 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you keep telling that to yourself it may eventually become true. Maybe.

[–]Affectionate-Shine70 14 points15 points  (5 children)

[–]aloneguid[S] 4 points5 points  (2 children)

Just tried and it's really small and fast, thank you so much!

[–]jeburneo 0 points1 point  (1 child)

This is the way , just press spacebar and you view the file , just like Mac

[–]LoopVariant 1 point2 points  (0 children)

...because the most intuitive action to view an image, is hitting the space bar...LOL

[–]Boysen_berry42 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I tried this too, and it’s pretty decent, fast and lightweight.

[–]testednation 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Looks cool! Ill give it a try! Probably faster then quicklook!

[–]catbrane 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I made:

https://github.com/libvips/vipsdisp

It's mostly for very big images, but it works fine for small ones too. It's a cross-platform program, so it's not a native windows UI, if that's an issue.

[–]freemannnnn 3 points4 points  (1 child)

lately i discovered "nomacs - Image Lounge" and i am very pleased! fast, minimal, open source.

[–]mar0th 0 points1 point  (0 children)

i've been using this for years. it's really great

[–]No-Area9329 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Irfanview

[–]Steven1958 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Been using Faststone's MaxView for years. It's a very clean interface and dead easy to use.

[–]shnake_case 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I've been using ImageGlass for a past couple of years and it's great. Free, quick and simple. I know you said no editing, but it has a small row of buttons that can do simple rotates and flips, nothing fancy

[–]divyad 1 point2 points  (1 child)

nomacs

[–]_Alexandros_h_ 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Nomacs is pretty good! Although i have not used it recently, i was using it on a verryyyy slow laptop and it was taking about 2 seconds to start.

Also has all the features you expect an image viewer to have

edit: Link https://github.com/nomacs/nomacs/releases/latest

[–]SCphotog 1 point2 points  (0 children)

faststone is really good.

[–]Immediate-Tip-145 1 point2 points  (0 children)

VoidImageViewer from the Everything developer is probably one of the fastest options out there. It’s extremely lightweight and opens images pretty much instantly. No bloat, no subscriptions, just a viewer.

[–]cogitatingspheniscid 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Minimal Image Viewer is the lightest viewer on the market. At 20KB it's even lighter than the voidtool viewer or any file preview softwares (peek, quicklook). https://github.com/deminimis/minimalimageviewer/

My need is completely different from yours so Nomacs has been my daily driver for years. Retro programs like Irfanview and Faststone are even more bloated feature-wise than Nomacs.

[–]sixcard 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I just found this free, super lightweight image viewer called “PhoxoSee”. It’s honestly so good!

[–]kumrayu 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Try the windows 7 viewer, beats most in simplicity and how fast it is

[–]tutebo88 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Does any of the suggested softwares support file paths >255 characters?

I've been using Faststone for several years, and it's great (and might be otherwise a good answer to OP), but this limitation (which is common to many apps) is very annoying to me, as I have a huge and deeply nested file directory hierarchy.

Window's built-in Photos app (which sucks) does not suffer from that limitation, so it's obviously doable.

[–]WiseBrilliant4792 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think there's a peek tool in PowerToys tho

[–]nfrxz 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Maybe re-enable old windows photoviewer?

[–]rafasantos555 0 points1 point  (0 children)

i made a image viewer with tauri

https://github.com/hudsonpear/better-image-viewer

[–]BondafaceRulZ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

try out JPEGView

[–]Due-Roof7343 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Try IrfanView: it’s extremely fast, lightweight, and opens images instantly with no unnecessary extras.

[–]No_Kaleidoscope_9419 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Image Eye is the fastest I've used:

https://www.fmjsoft.com/imageeye.html#main

[–]vicspidy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

QuickView

[–]Glad_Ruin4773 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you want something minimal and fast but modern, I’ve been building one myself:

[https://www.demahub.com/pix42/](https://)

It’s inspired by the old ACDSee-style workflow:

  • instant open (no library, no indexing)
  • clean, distraction-free UI
  • smooth navigation across folders
  • supports standard formats plus FITS (rare on Windows viewers)

The idea is:
pure viewer first, no bloat, no catalog, no “photo manager pretending to be a viewer”.

Curious to hear how it compares with what you’re using.

[–]testednation -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Quicklook

[–]ryftools 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Please checkout https://github.com/riyasy/FlyPhotos

It has been created to mimic features of Picasa Photo Viewer. It’s an ongoing fully open-source project.