Minimal Image Viewer

The most 🪶 lightweight image viewer available for Windows

Fast. Native. Private. Minimal.
A lightweight and secure image viewer for Windows, built with native Win32 and modern C++.
Designed to open everything from small PNGs to large RAW and HDR images without unnecessary bloat.

       

Download

Recommended: Install the latest signed version from the Microsoft Store:

Alternative: GitHub Releases

💾 Download Portable (.exe)

For the ultra-minimal legacy build, try the stripped 21 KB executable.

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Highlights

• ✅ Native Win32 application
• ✅ No telemetry
• ✅ No external runtime dependencies
• ✅ No installer required for portable builds
• ✅ Lightweight executable size
• ✅ Fast startup and low memory usage
• ✅ Supports common image formats through Windows Imaging Component
• ✅ Designed for privacy-focused local image viewing

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📊 Comparison

Feature	Minimal Image Viewer	Windows Photos	IrfanView / XnView
Executable Size	~500 KB	~50 MB+	~3–5 MB+
Telemetry / Network	None	Yes	Optional
Portable	Yes (.ini)	No	Partial
Deep Zoom	Yes (GPU streaming)	Limited	No
RAW Preview Optimization	Yes	Limited	Plugin-based
SVG Support	Yes (native GPU)	No	Limited
HDR / QOI Support	Yes	No	Partial
Startup Speed	Instant	Slow	Moderate
Open Source	Yes	No	No

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✨ Features

🖼️ Image Support

Supports a wide range of formats using WIC + custom decoders:

• Standard: JPEG, PNG, BMP, GIF, TIFF, ICO, WebP
• Modern: HEIF, HEIC, AVIF
• RAW (Camera): CR2, CR3, NEF, DNG, ARW, ORF, RW2 (via codecs)
• Advanced Formats:
  • SVG (Vector rendering, GPU-accelerated)
  • HDR (.hdr Radiance with tone mapping from nothings)
  • QOI (Quite OK Image
  • TGA, PSD, PPM, PGM, PBM, PNM

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🎞️ Animated Images (GIF & Multi-frame)

• Full animated image playback
• Correct frame timing + disposal behavior
• Interactive controls:
  • Space → Pause + step frames
  • Shift + Space → Resume playback
  • Shift + ← / → → Previous / Next frame
  • Shift + ↑ / ↓ → Jump to first frame

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🔍 Viewing & Navigation

• Smooth zoom (Ctrl + Mouse Wheel, Ctrl +/-)
• Cursor-centered zooming
• Click + drag to pan
• Fit to Window (Ctrl+0 / double-click / middle mouse button)
• Actual Size (Ctrl+* / middle mouse button)
• Custom zoom dialog (Ctrl+Shift+Z)
• Instant next / previous image navigation
  • Use arrow keys, customizable keys, mouse cursor on sides of screen, mouse buttons, or right click + scroll

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🚀 Performance (Built for Speed)

• Asynchronous image loading → no UI blocking
• Directory preloading → instant browsing
• Deep Zoom (GPU-assisted):
  • Downscaled preview for huge images
  • Full resolution streamed only when needed
• RAW preview extraction:
  • Loads embedded previews (fast)
  • Falls back to full decode only when necessary

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📂 Smart File Handling

• Automatic directory scanning
• Navigate all images in current folder
• Sort by:
  • Name
  • Date Modified
  • File Size
• Ascending / descending sorting

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🎨 Rendering & Visuals

• GPU rendering via Direct2D + DXGI
• Smooth scaling (toggle interpolation)
• Optional fade transitions
• Background modes:
  • Grey (default)
  • Black
  • White
  • Checkerboard transparency
• Automatic dark/light title bar

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🛠️ Editing Tools (Non-Destructive)

• Note, OCR and Color Picker were moved to dedicated utilities.

  • Very light OCR tool: MiniSnip
  • Extremely light 20 kb colorpicker: minimal color picker

• Crop Tool

  • C → Enable crop
  • Drag selection
  • Enter → Apply
  • Esc → Cancel

• Resize Tool

  • Custom dimensions
  • Aspect ratio lock
  • High-quality scaling (Fant)

• Transformations

  • Rotate (90° increments)
  • Flip horizontal
  • EXIF auto-rotation on load

• Undo System

  • Ctrl+Z
  • Memory-safe multi-step history

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📊 Metadata & OSD

• Built-in EXIF + file metadata parsing
• Toggle OSD (I) showing:
  • Format, resolution, DPI
  • File size, attributes
  • Camera data (ISO, aperture, exposure)
  • Author / software

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📁 File Operations

• Open (Ctrl+O) or drag & drop
• Save (Ctrl+S) with atomic overwrite
• Save As (Ctrl+Shift+S)
• Resize + save new file
• Delete (Recycle Bin safe delete)
• Clipboard support:
  • Copy image path
  • Paste images from clipboard
• Open file location instantly

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🔄 Automation

• Auto-refresh mode
  • Detects file changes on disk
  • Reloads safely when modified externally

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⚙️ Customization

• Fully customizable keybindings
• Portable .ini config
• Preferences include:
  • Always on Top
  • Start Fullscreen
  • Single Instance enforcement
  • Background color
  • Smooth scaling toggle
  • Fade animation toggle
  • OSD toggle
  • Default zoom mode

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⚙️ Technical Highlights

🧱 Core Architecture

• Language: C++20
• Platform: Native Win32 (no frameworks)
• Rendering:
  • Direct2D (GPU)
  • DirectWrite (text)
  • DXGI swap chain

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🖼️ Image Pipeline (WIC)

• IWICBitmapDecoder → load images
• IWICFormatConverter → normalize formats

Editing pipeline (non-destructive):

• Flip/Rotate → IWICBitmapFlipRotator
• Crop → IWICBitmapClipper
• Resize → IWICBitmapScaler
• Convert → IWICFormatConverter

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🎞️ Animation Engine

• Frame-based decoding using WIC metadata
• Custom compositor:
  • Handles disposal modes
  • Maintains frame buffers
• Timer-driven playback system

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🔍 Deep Zoom System

• Large images downscaled (~4K working size)
• High resolution streamed dynamically using:
  • ID2D1ImageSource
• Prevents VRAM spikes and improves responsiveness

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🧵 Multithreading

• Background threads for:
  • Image decoding
  • Directory scanning
  • Preloading images
• UI thread synchronized via WM_APP messages

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🧠 Smart Loading

• Full file read (avoids file locks)
• RAW/TIFF preview extraction
• Native codec downscaling when possible
• CPU fallback scaler when needed

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📦 Extended Format Support

• SVG

  • Rendered via DrawSvgDocument (GPU)

• HDR

  • Decoded via stb_image
  • Tone-mapped to display space

• QOI

  • Decoded via embedded qoi.h

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💾 Portable Configuration

• Settings stored in: minimal_image_viewer_settings.ini

• No registry usage

• Fully portable between systems

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🔒 Safety & Reliability

• Atomic saves (temp file replacement)
• Recycle Bin deletion (recoverable)
• Memory-limited undo stack
• Large image safeguards

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🎯 Philosophy

Do one thing extremely well.

Minimal Image Viewer is built to be:

• ⚡ Fast
• 🧠 Smart
• 🔒 Private
• 📦 Tiny
• 🧩 Complete

No telemetry. No dependencies. No bloat.

Just a powerful, minimal image viewer for Windows.

Disclaimer: This readme was redone by CoPilot to add flashy icons and dumb advertisement/SEO language.