Application shortcuts

Application shortcuts now work with the mouse

• The mouse wheel, middle mouse buttons, as well as the side buttons are now configurable. This also works with modifier keys (Alt, Shift, Ctrl, ⌘ Cmd, ⌥ Option).

⚠️ Breaking Change: These settings replace the legacy options for Mouse side buttons and Ctrl to zoom, scroll to navigate. Upgrading from a previous version automatically maps the wheel and side buttons to default application shortcuts.

Contextual actions - These are actions that dynamically adapt based on what is viewed. They are assigned by default to keys such as Enter, Esc, and Space. For example, Enter confirms a dialog, and Esc stops playback on a motion photo or slideshow before closing the window. This updates Gallery click to act as Confirm.

Improved window behavior

• The Application shortcuts window now stages changes as a draft, allowing you to undo, redo, or reset before applying.
• Fixed bugs while filtering and adjusting shortcuts.
• The Application shortcuts window no longer needs to be reopened to reset them, and the shortcuts settings are more stable.

Favorites

• Added quick-access folder favorites. Manage and assign them directly from the dropdown menu.
• Each favorite slot can have its own shortcut.

Gallery

• Right-clicking a gallery thumbnail now respects the deletion confirmation setting.
• TIFF and TGA thumbnails now show. TIFF thumbnails used to be blank.
• RAW thumbnails use the camera’s embedded preview, which loads faster.
• The right-click menus are loaded on demand, so the thumbnails can load faster.

Bug fixes

• Window size and position are now properly saved and restored for width-locked windows.
• Fixed clipboard copy ignoring transformations (flip and rotation).
• Fixed the first left-click on a gallery item not responding.
• Fixed 8-bit grayscale PNGs not displaying.
• Fixed a possible crash when dragging and dropping files.
• Fixed bad layout when entering or exiting fullscreen while zoomed in. The zoom is now reset.
• Fixed missing actions in the Navigation dialog.
• Fixed title bar line height with mixed Latin and CJK text.
• Fixed images staying in memory after their tab is closed.
• Fixed incorrect layout after detaching a new tab.
• Fixed double-clicking actions firing unintentionally.
• Fixed file tracking issues when items are renamed, deleted, or added while multiple tabs are open.
• Fixed gallery stretching not syncing between the Settings window and the gallery.
• Fixed instances of the scrollbar being fixed to the image when scrolling is enabled.
• Fixed gallery clearing and staying empty when changing the file sorting.
• Fixed the Image resize window saves a new file instead of conversion when a conversion target is selected in the combo box.
• Fixed the pop-up calendars, in the Image information window, ignoring a year or month picked without selecting a day.

macOS

• Critical: Printing no longer deletes the image file.
• Fixed sizing and switching between fullscreen states when multiple monitors are connected.
• Fixed the resize grip button position.
• Added keyboard modifier buttons icons (⌘ Cmd, ⌥ Option, ⇧ Shift, ⌃ Ctrl) to the Application shortcuts window.
• Printing now sends the number of copies you chose.

⚠️ Note for intel macOS users: Magick.NET have removed support for Intel chips (x64) in the 15.0.0 version. The x64 macOS build uses the legacy Magick.NET 14.7.2 for now. Support for this build may be removed in a future release.

Windows

• You can now cut files with Ctrl + X by default (this was removed when PicView got rewritten to Avalonia in 3.x).
• Fixed a duplicate confirmation dialog appearing alongside the native Windows prompt (#423).
• Fixed an application crash when updating the application.
• Windows printing now uses the paper size and orientation you chose, at the page’s real size.

Settings

• Added a new option to toggle if the Esc button should exit the application or restore window size when in full-screen (⚠️on by default).
• Added a new option to navigate by clicking the left or right half of the image.
• Motion photo badges are now hidden by default.
• The restart button is now easier to see.

Languages

• Updated Danish translation.
• Updated Vietnamese.
• Added Arabic (ar) translation.
• Added missing “line spacing” and “item spacing” translations.

Miscellaneous

• Double-clicking the start-up menu now toggles fullscreen if enabled in the settings.
• Added the print action to the drop-down menu.

Internal updates

• Updated Magick.NET to 15.0.
• Updated SharpCompress to 0.50.7.
• Updated ZLinq to 1.6.1

What’s new in PicView 5.0 to 5.1.4

This release cycle introduces a new tabbed interface alongside a major architectural overhaul. Window sizing has been completely rebuilt for more intuitive behavior, image caching is shared across tabs and windows to reduce memory usage, and the gallery now features UI virtualization for lightning-fast browsing of large directories.

Highlights

• 🗂️ New tabbed interface
• 🪟 Completely redesigned window sizing
• ⚡ Lower memory usage through shared image caching
• 🖼️ Dockable image gallery with UI virtualization
• 📸 Native Motion Photo (Live Photo) support
• 🌓 Complete Light theme overhaul with refined icons and contrast
• 🔍 Searchable Settings window
• 📦 Smoother archive extraction with instant preview

⚠️ Important Upgrade Notes

• Settings reset: Gallery settings will not be preserved because they have been completely reworked. Auto-fit window is also now disabled by default.
• Shortcuts: Tab shortcuts (Ctrl+T/W) must be manually re-added to prevent overwriting your custom bindings.
• Current Limitations: Tab creation is currently unavailable when the gallery is docked, and multi-page TIFFs may not render correctly in Side-by-side mode.
• Secondary Windows: The Print, Image information, and Image effects windows only support a single tab (the active tab from which they were opened).

Tabbed interface and window behavior

• Introduced a redesigned interface with support for tabbed navigation. When no additional tabs are open, the UI hides the tab panel so it effectively functions as a single image window (just like in prior releases).
• Auto-fit window no longer prevents you from resizing the window manually, and the macOS traffic light buttons are now available by default.
• The bottom toolbar has been rebuilt with a focus on zooming and rotation, fixing usability issues on touch-only devices.
• Added a new Rename dialog that shows up when the title bar is not visible, allowing you to rename files while the UI is hidden or when viewing in full screen.
• The minimum window size has been lowered from 450 to 315 pixels. The window also dynamically adjusts to lower window sizes by hiding some buttons and automatically adjusting button sizes to fit.
• When the UI is hidden, a new toolbar displaying the file name appears when hovering the cursor at the top. Dragging it allows you to move the window.
• Improved the dropdown menu layout to make frequently used actions quicker and easier to access.

Motion Photo support

• Added native playback for Motion Photos (Live Photos) directly within PicView, working right out of the box with no third-party dependencies required.

Image gallery

• Drastically improved gallery loading by implementing UI virtualization—rendering only visible images and pre-fetching upcoming thumbnails during scrolling, keeping navigation fast even in folders with thousands of images.
• The image gallery can now be docked to the top, left, or right side of the window, instead of being locked to the bottom.
• Renamed the Show bottom gallery setting to Show docked gallery at bottom.
• Added an option to control whether the mouse wheel in the docked gallery navigates between images or scrolls the gallery itself.

Light theme overhaul

• The light theme has received a massive overhaul to bring it up to the high standards of the default dark theme, with refined icons and significantly improved visual contrast across the interface.

Archive navigation & extraction

• Archive loading has been redesigned so the first image appears immediately while remaining files continue extracting in the background.
• Archive extractions are intelligently batched in groups of 10 with a progress indicator, making browsing archives much smoother, especially over remote or network connections.

Animated AVIF

• Added support for playing .avif files with multiple frames.

Zoom and image stretching

• The displayed zoom percentage is now calculated relative to the image’s original dimensions, rather than starting at 100% when the image is automatically fitted to the window.
• Renamed Stretch image to Zoom to fit for better clarity (behavior remains unchanged).

Side-by-side view

• The Side-by-side view has been rewritten for improved performance and stability.
• Viewing animated images Side-by-side (GIFs, WEBP) now works correctly.

Settings and Image Information

• Added a search bar to quickly find individual settings within the Settings window.
• The window is now resizable and remembers its size and position between sessions.
• The layout is now fully scrollable rather than being restricted to fixed, rigid categories.
• Added new settings to customize mouse side-button behavior (navigate between archives, folders, or standard image navigation).
• Added a new dark background color that matches the toolbars in the dark theme.
• Added a setting to choose whether the title bar displays the full file path or only the current file name.
• Added Always uncompress entire archive option in the settings window.
• Showing a confirmation dialog is now on by default when pressing Esc.
• Made clock numbers easier to click when selecting a time in the Image information window.
• Added AM/PM toggle buttons (automatically hidden when using 24-hour time).
• Made hour and minute arcs clickable to set the time directly based on click position.

Print

• The print window is now resizable and remembers previously used settings, printer selections, and window positions between sessions.
• Added a new Export to PDF option that converts the current image to a PDF using your last selected print settings.
• The print preview now dynamically updates as you navigate through images.

Performance

• Drastically improved gallery loading times by virtualizing thumbnail generation—only rendering visible images and pre-fetching upcoming thumbnails during scrolling.
• Navigation now shares image caches between tabs and windows, significantly reducing memory usage when working with multiple tabs or windows.
• Optimized hot path functions to reduce memory allocations and improve overall performance.
• Archive loading has been redesigned, so the first image appears immediately while remaining files continue extracting in the background.

Windows

• Integrated native Windows thumbnails for faster thumbnail loading.
• The window now uses system borders and native shadows.
• Added the picview-ffmpeg.dll file in a new plugin directory.
• Fixed native Windows thumbnails being shown upside down.
• Fixed top-right corner close targets.
• Fixed window not starting up correctly.
• Fixed an issue where the title bar menu could be truncated when using languages with longer words.
• Fixed a bug where the group type checkboxes were not selecting and unselecting correctly in the File Associations window.

macOS

• PicView is now using native macOS thumbnails for faster thumbnail loading.
• Updated default keyboard shortcuts to better align with native macOS user expectations.
• Adjusted title bar position for macOS 27 bigger traffic lights buttons.
• Fixed not being able to load default application shortcuts.
• Fixed the first key being pressed when entering the search function (e.g. pressing Cmd+F no longer inserts “f” into the search box).
• Fixed incorrect layout after expanding and contracting the gallery when docked to the side.
• Fixed gallery not centering correctly after expanding or contracting.
• Fixed the startup logic to no longer cause blinking because of excessive window resizing when Auto-fit window is enabled.
• Fixed window not centering when Auto-fit window is enabled.
• Fixed an issue where the macOS file open dialog would become completely unresponsive until the application was manually refocused.
• Fixed unresponsive update button.
• Fixed issues with opening some JPEGs from Finder.
• Fixed the native top menu bar having blank and unclickable items.

Languages

• Added Vietnamese and Catalan languages, and improved Spanish translations.
• Improved language selection at startup when no settings exist yet.

Bug fixes

• Fixed startup window not being vertically centered.
• Fixed window size not correctly being predicted at startup when auto-fit window is enabled.
• Fixed image rotation issues when Auto-fit window is enabled.
• Fixed an issue where the window width failed to adjust during rapid image navigation with Auto-fit window enabled.
• Fixed an issue where Auto-fit window failed to center the window on startup when resuming from the last opened file.
• Fixed an issue with incorrect window sizing when rotating when Auto-fit window is enabled.
• Various window size improvements at startup.
• Fixed possible UI freeze when changing docked gallery position.
• Fixed thumbnails in the gallery not updating correctly when changing directory.
• Fixed incorrect thumbnail rendering when the gallery is docked to the side.
• Fixed erratic horizontal gallery scrolling behavior.
• Fixed some issues with more than one gallery item thumbnail being selected.
• Fixed an issue where disabling docking was greyed out incorrectly.
• Fixed the Show docked gallery right click menu option not working and added a toggle to the settings window.
• Fixed the drop-down menu not closing when selecting the bottom-docked gallery option.
• Fixed gallery thumbnails becoming desynchronized after sorting files.
• Fixed the gallery hover button not showing up.
• Fixed the gallery not hiding when loading an image through URL.
• Fixed possible image size miscalculation when gallery is docked.
• Fixed crop crashing if exiting when the gallery is docked.
• Fixed various issues when starting Crop mode while the UI is hidden.
• Fixed the crop button in the drop-down menu not being disabled when cropping is not possible.
• Fixed a possible crash when navigating the file history.
• Fixed crash when attempting to load file history if no previous history existed.
• Fixed hover animations missing for the settings tab in the drop-down menu.
• Fixed the resetting keybindings button missing its styling.
• Fixed the Application shortcuts not working.
• Fixed unintended text box up/down buttons appearing when not enough space in the Image information window.
• Fixed not displaying loading at startup and fixed tab title not displaying the full path on tooltip when hovering.
• Fixed tab title displaying loading when pasting from clipboard image or URL.
• Fixed certain instances where the title bar would show a loading title, even though it was not loading.
• Fixed instances of incorrect image size when the top title bar is hidden.
• Fixed instances where the hoverbar didn’t show when starting up in fullscreen mode.
• Fixed an issue where the hover bar occasionally failed to appear.
• Fixed janky zoom out animation.
• Fixed incorrect display in the language selection combo box.
• Fixed the Optimize image button not being disabled when the image format was not supported.
• Fixed missing background for the photo overlay badge.
• Corrected the labels for the rotation symbols in the context menu.
• Resolved a startup crash that could occur if a mouse click was registered too early.
• Fixed the Save as function not working.
• Fixed the image still showing an outdated cached version when saving the image.
• Fixed the update button not working in the About window.
• Fixed an issue where using the window centering function could cause a crash to desktop.
• Fixed the resize grip (bottom-right corner) in the main window not working.
• Fixed memory leak when navigating between images.
• Fixed EXIF User Comment decoding across current and legacy encodings.
• Fixed Ctrl+S triggering image rotation instead of save.
• Fixed Side-by-Side Archive shows page 1 on both side instead of page 1 and page 2.
• Fixed an issue where double-clicking a file with a mismatched extension failed to show the main window (#372).
• Fixed pasting text (e.g., URLs via Ctrl + V) in the startup menu failing to load images.
• Fixed the dropdown menu opening across multiple open windows simultaneously.
• Fixed the star rating buttons being hard to hit.
• Fixed a potential issue when deleting files until the watched directory is empty.
• Fixed some sliders and presets not working in the effects window.
• Fixed crash when starting up with a URL as an argument.
• Fixed some errors that could occur when selecting a date in the dropdown in Image information window, and improved text box date input entering.
• Fixed some windows not being activated when attempting to open them again.
• Fixed some instances of multi-paged tiffs not navigating to the last page.
• Fixed an issue where navigating between multiple multi-page TIFF files could result in a blank view.
• Fixed a crash when opening the Batch resize window when no image files were viewed.
• Fixed embedded ICC profile rendering.
• Fixed an issue where the bottom half of the toolbar was not reacting correctly.
• Fixed the mouse-side buttons triggering left-button behavior.
• Fixed the Effects window not being accessible in the Application shortcuts window.
• Fixed certain animated GIFs not playing.

Miscellaneous

• The Previous and Next buttons are now disabled when the beginning or end of the image list is reached.
• The Image Effects window now remembers its previous window position.

Internal updates

• Updated Avalonia to 12.1.2.
• Updated to .NET 11.
• Updated Magick.NET to 14.7.2.
• Updated R3 to 1.3.1.
• Updated SharpCompress to 0.50.4.
• Updated Svg.Controls.Skia.Avalonia to 12.0.0.17.
• Updated ZLinq to 1.5.6.