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 Portable (.exe)

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

• ✅ 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

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

• 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

• 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

• 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

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

• 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

• 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

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

• 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

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

• 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

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

• IWICBitmapDecoder → load images
• IWICFormatConverter → normalize formats

Editing pipeline (non-destructive):

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

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

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

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

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

• SVG

  • Rendered via DrawSvgDocument (GPU)

• HDR

  • Decoded via stb_image
  • Tone-mapped to display space

• QOI

  • Decoded via embedded qoi.h

• Settings stored in: minimal_image_viewer_settings.ini

• No registry usage

• Fully portable between systems

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

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.