The Best Photo Viewer Applications for Windows

Discover powerful alternatives to Windows' built-in photo viewer that offer enhanced functionality and superior image management. These applications combine speed, versatility, and user-friendly interfaces, making them essential tools for both casual users and photography enthusiasts looking to streamline their photo viewing experience on Windows.
The Best Photo Viewer Applications for Windows

Windows comes with a built-in photo viewer, but it doesn't always work the best for everyone. In this post, we'll go over some of the best photo viewer applications for Windows that you can use to better manage and view your photos. Whether you're looking for a basic image viewer or something more advanced, we've got you covered!

There are many different photo viewer applications for Windows. Photo viewers are great tools for viewing images, but there are some that stand out among the rest. Stay tuned for our top picks.

Best Windows Photo Viewer Apps & Software

The following are the best photo viewer app for Windows you can rely on:

#1 IrfanView

IrfanView
 Pros Cons
  • Free to use
  • Lightweight, quick startup
  • Knows many file formats
  • Batch conversion and resizing
  • Can’t zoom with scroll wheel
  • Outdated interface
  • Cluttered, difficult commands

IrfanView has been around for a long time, and it still offers many of the features that Windows 10’s default photo viewer lacks. IrfanView is a great photo viewer that gives you more tools to view, organize and edit your images. It's associated with an extensive range of extensions, allowing you to add all sorts of extra features!

IrfanView also allows you to customize images with colors and shapes, as well as convert them into different formats at whatever quality level you choose — perfect if one prefers something less bulky than Photoshop.

If you’re looking for a free, fluid program for organizing and displaying images, IrfanView is definitely worth a try. The interesting editing tools, advanced commands, extensions as well as the ability to watch videos make this a perfectly balanced media viewer for Windows!

#2 ImageGlass

ImageGlass
Pros Cons
  • Simple, lightweight, and free
  • Wide variety of app themes to choose from
  • Support for 70+ file formats
  • No options for organizing images
  • The interface may feel too cluttered for some users

ImageGlass is the perfect program if you want to quickly view images on your computer. It doesn't take up much RAM or processor power, even while running under Windows 10 on a daily basis! It’s a lightweight program that will not burden your system with unnecessary baggage.

The app includes support for over 70 file formats, you can view just about any image that comes your way. You can easily navigate through different picture galleries or slideshows without having to switch programs constantly!

With ImageGlass, there are no limits in terms of what you can do with your images. Do everything from simple viewing all the way through slideshow mode, with options for image editing like rotating clockwise and anticlockwise, scaling width and height, and more advanced functions too.

#3 Honeyview

Honeyview
Pros Cons
  • Free to use
  • Lightweight and fast
  • Shows animated GIF & WebP
  • View images in compressed files without extracting them
  • Outdated interface
  • Portable version only available for 32-bit systems
  • No official Windows 11 support yet

Sometimes, less is more, and Honeyview is the perfect example of that. The application has a simple interface that doesn’t try to be more than what it’s meant to be. You get a stylish navigation bar to quickly switch between images and perform some basic functions like format conversion and resizing.

The best part of this application is the bookmark system. You can save your favorite images in your bookmarks to have quick access to them at any point. You’ll never have to dig through countless folders just to find something again!

Another unique feature in Honeyview is the ability to view images in compressed files without having to extract them first. For example, if you receive a large .zip archive, you don’t have to spend minutes extracting it before you can view its contents. So, what are you waiting for? Give Honeyview a try — it’s completely free to use!

#4 nomacs

nomacs
Pros Cons
  • Open source and free
  • Lightweight
  • Supports file formats such as RAW and PSD (Photoshop)
  • Not many theme options
  • Rarely updated

If you love open source, you’re going to love nomacs. It’s a free and open-source image viewer which supports multiple platforms, and works flawlessly on Windows 10. As expected, you can use it for viewing all common formats. What we love is viewing more advanced file formats, which include RAW images (commonly used by modern iPhones) and even PSDs (Adobe Photoshop files).

Of course, image editing is available too. You can crop, resize, rotate, and even add blur effects to images straight from nomacs. The nomacs application is a unique way to browse through images. The semi-transparent widgets can be assigned various functions and provide additional information such as thumbnails, metadata or histogram depending on your needs for that particular file type.

You can also use nomacs to browse images in .zip or Microsoft Office files which can be extracted to a directory.

#5 XnView MP

XnView MP
Pros Cons
  • Personal and educational use is free of charge
  • Dark theme
  • Extensive editing options
  • Support for many languages thanks to Unicode
  • Requires expensive licenses outside of personal and educational use
  • Cluttered interface

XnView MP is a powerful and versatile photo viewer and manager that can also be used for image editing. It's one of the most stable programs on offer due to its ease-of-use features which makes it great if you want something simple with little effort put into making your own tweaks or changes!

All common picture formats are supported, so no matter what type of photos need viewing, they'll show up in the XnView MP library as well. The extensive editing options include lossless resizing, rotation, and crop as well as adjustments for brightness, contrast, levels, saturation, and even filters with effects.

If you need a free app at home or for educational purposes, XnView MP is perfect. For commercial users, a license starts from €29.00.

#6 Pictureflect Photo Viewer

Pictureflect Photo Viewer
Pros Cons
  • Clean, modern interface
  • Works on both Windows 10 and 11
  • Intuitive and fast
  • Extensive editing and impressive feature list
  • Some features are locked behind a Pro upgrade

Do you want to use the latest in tech, even when it comes to viewing and editing your photos? Try Pictureflect. With the free Pictureflect Photo Viewer, you can enjoy a minimalist and sleek photo viewing experience on your Windows 10 (and Windows 11) device.

The feature list is extensive, especially for a mostly free application. Full Screen mode allows you to hide all clutter and only focus on your photos, the intuitive editing tools make sure your images look just the way you want them to. Many zoom options bring your focus to the areas that matter the most to you.

The optional Pro upgrade offers even more features like customization options for an even more personalized feel. It’s also affordable, starting at just $3.99 in the US and Western Europe, and even cheaper in many other regions.

#7 JPEGView

JPEGView
Pros Cons
  • Open source and free
  • Many editing options
  • Dated interface
  • Not much support online
  • No configuration

JPEGview is a free, open-source photo viewer that provides extensive editing features for those who want to get creative. With JPEGview, you can enjoy and experience a free Windows 10 photo viewer that’s faster than the built-in one. It has an extensive range of editing features that will make your photos look their best!

Minimal, fast and easy to use. It does everything you could want it too with no fuss or hassle! If you’ve tried a lot of image viewer programs over the years, this one is definitely worth your attention. It has everything you could need and nothing that stands between you and your images.

JPEGView is fast, lightweight, open source and most importantly — free.

Final thoughts

We hope you enjoyed our list of the best photo viewer apps for Windows 10. This is just a small sampling of what’s available to help you with your image editing and viewing needs on this operating system. Let us know if we missed any that are worth mentioning!

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