Best Photo Viewers for Windows 10 in 2020

It’s true that the Windows 10 Photo Viewer that comes pre-installed on new Windows-based machines is, today, pretty comprehensive and packed full of features for generating video, adding animation, drawing and adding text alongside the standard ability to view images. But do these added complexities actually degrade the user experience from what it is as heart, a photo viewer? And does the user interface behave most intuitively for the average user? Well, if not, there’s more than one alternative to Windows Photo Viewer, and some come with a few surprises up their sleeve. So let’s take a look at some of the most popular photo viewer alternatives for Windows 10, and discover which is the best photo viewer for Windows 10 for your needs.

Program	Pros	Cons
Movavi Photo Manager	Facial recognition automatically creates albums for each person	Images must be uploaded to the software
Apowersoft Photo Viewer	Low lag photo viewing for smooth gallery scrolling	Archaic GUI looks like XP and has limited features
FastStone Image Viewer	Reads many image file types including camera RAW	The overabundance of tools for the average user
IrfanView	Expandable features with the use of plugins	Outdated user interface not to everyone’s taste
XnView	Opening tips windows are helpful	Images open in single tabs which are unscrollable
Nomacs	Supports filtration of geotagged images	The minimalist layout could be confusing for beginners
Google Photos	Free cloud storage that updates across multiple devices	Cloud-based service

Best Alternatives to Windows Photo Viewer

Below we’ll outline the top 7 desktop-based image viewing software for Windows 10. Each software has varying degrees of editing capabilities including the ability to add extra plug-ins to make the software more desirable to specialist tasks such as batch editing, movie-making or animation. Whether it’s fast large image processing, a simple user interface or the ability to open many types of file formats read on to discover the photo viewer that’s right for you.

Movavi Photo Manager

Movavi Photo Manager does a great job of giving you the tools required front and center without complicated sub-menus and reams of directory lists. The automatic chronological arrangement of images makes it easy to sift through chunks of photos in a manageable way, with the editing tools themselves such as crop, rotation and tagging along the top of the program window. However, the editing tools apply to the images on the disk, and not a virtual copy, so there’s no undoing the editing once it’s been done. That makes editing through this photo viewer a little worrisome for those precious photos, and duplicating hundreds of files in the family album just so you can edit them seems antiquated compared to other batch editing software on the market. That said, it’s a solid photo viewing software and works reliably and robustly right from the off. This should definitely be one of the top contenders for those wanting to switch from Windows Photo Viewer.

This program is also listed in our top-10 photo organizing software. To read it, follow the link below.

• Facial recognition automatically creates albums for each person

• Images must be uploaded to the software

12 Best Photo Viewer for Windows 10 (2020 Edition)

The new Windows Photo viewer has its own woes. You double click an image and it takes its own sweet time to load. Plus, it can only handle JPEGs and RAW images, but it has no clue what’s a PSD. Having said that, it does have few editing tools which work great but it’s seldom preferred anyway. All in all, there are much better alternatives out there that just trump Microsoft Photos. So, here goes my list for the best photo viewer for Windows 10.

How to set a default photo viewer

Just a heads up, installing a third-party photo viewer app isn’t going to be enough. You also have to make it your default Photo viewer app. To do that on Windows 10, head over to the search bar and type Default. Next, go to Default Apps Settings > Photos. Now you can select any Photo viewer as your default image viewer.

Best Photo Viewer for Windows 10

1. Windows Photo Viewer

Windows Photo Viewer has been a part of the Windows family since Windows XP. Formerly, it was known as Windows Picture and Fax Viewer and later renamed to Windows Photo Viewer. Coming to Windows 10, Microsoft universally replaced it with its updated version Photos. But, the developers still haven’t removed it from the system and it’s still accessible within the files.

However, in order to make it work, you would have to tweak the registry keys. I wouldn’t recommend manually editing them and hence you should download the .reg files app.

File formats: JPEG, PNG, BMP, TIFF, etc.

Pros:

• Simple UI with minimal features

Cons:

• Native editing reduces the size
• Doesn’t support GIFs

How to get Windows Photo Viewer back in Windows 10

If you have upgraded from a previous version to Windows 10, you would see the Windows Photo Viewer directly in the Default Apps menu under Settings. If you have installed Windows 10 from scratch, you need to follow these steps to activate it:

• Download these registry files for the Windows photo viewer
• Extract and double click on the “Activate Windows Photo Viewer on Windows 10” file
• Next, restart your computer and your beloved Windows photo Viewer should be back. And if you wish to deactivate it, just run the ‘Deactivate Windows Photo Viewer on Windows 10’ file and restart your system

2. HoneyView

HoneyView is the most basic third-party image viewer for Windows 10. It’s almost similar to Windows Photos Viewer in functionality and features, however, it supports a couple of extra image formats like PNG, GIF, etc.

Features:

It allows you to rotate images and perform basic resizing with it. Editing can be done by attaching a link to either Photoshop or Paint. You can bookmark images for future references.

Format: JPG, PNG, GIF, BMP, and PSD.

Pros:

• Ease of usability and resemblance to the windows photo viewer

Cons:

• No inbuilt editing tools

Download Honeyview: Windows 10

3. ImageGlass

ImageGlass is another minimal photo viewer for Windows 10. But what really stands out is the modern UI of the tool compared to other photo view apps.

Features:

ImageGlass lets you view a slideshow of all the images saved in a folder. Something so simple and useful but still lacking in Windows Photo. You can link different image editors to different file formats. For instance, I can link PSDs to Photoshop. So every time I choose to edit a PSD, it will open in Photoshop only. It supports pretty much every file type under the sun.

Format: JPG, GIF, BMP, TIFF, WEBP, and 72+ image formats.

Pros:

Cons:

• Lacks inbuilt editing tools

Download ImageGlass: Windows 10

4. IrfanView

IrfanView is one of the most popular third-party image viewing apps and it is even our pick for the best photo viewer for Windows 10. It is named after the creator Irfan Sklijan and is free to use. The software is pretty light, intuitive and supports a large graphics file format base.

Features:

IrfanView is optimized to perform better and has a footprint of only 2MB. Apart from the image viewing, it also has a few extra tools. For instance, it supports OCR to “read” text on an image and export it to an editable format. Apart from that, you can also color correct pictures, add watermarks and a few different filters.

Format: BMP, GIF, JPEG, JP2 & JPM, PNG, TIFF, RAW, ECW, EMF, FSH, ICO, PCX, PBM, PDF, PGM, PPM, TGA, Flash, Ogg and text files.

Pros:

• Lightweight and easy to use
• Versatile file format base and can easily handle huge RAW images
• Supports more than 50 plugins

Cons:

• Not the best UI
• Although it can be fixed in the settings, scrolling through folders is painful as Irfan View constantly tries to open a non-image.

Download IrfanView: Windows 10

5. FastStone Image Viewer

The FastStone image viewer is yet another lightweight image viewer for Windows 10 with multiple language support. It has a slideshow option with many attractive transition effects.

Features:

Foremost, it supports audio and video playback. It supports multi-monitor configuration which would come in handy if you work with a large number of images. It also supports viewing, renaming, and converting files in batch. Moreover, you can also use the portable variant that can be run without installing.

Format: BMP, JPEG, JPEG 2000, GIF, PNG, PCX, TIFF, WMF, ICO, and TGA), RAW, MP4, MP3.

Pros:

• Dark theme support to complement Windows theme
• Supports renaming and converting in batch
• Support for video and audio playback
• Email sharing option

Cons:

• Slow thumbnail generation
• Overall scrolling is slow.

Download Faststone: Windows 10

6. XnView

With initial support for only Unix systems, Xnview is now available as a photo viewer for Windows 10 as well. It is not just an image viewer but a photo organizer and editor too. XnView is a robust software and supports multiple languages.

Features:

XnView not only supports 500+ image formats but also a few audio and video formats. It also supports scripting to rename a batch of files in a single stretch. On top of that, you can use basic editing tools to crop, resize, rotate, and add a bunch of effects. You can edit Raster images too which is a rare feature.

Format: JPG, BMP, GIF, PNG, TIFF, Raster and 500+ file formats.

Pros:

• Supports large file format base
• Scripting for basic tasks supported

Cons:

• It is free only for private use

Download XnView: Windows 10

7. FocusOn Image Viewer

The only stand out feature about FocusOn Image Viewer is the inbuilt editor. In case you have used Adobe Lightroom 2015, the editor resembles the same format. It has a histogram at the top with multiple sliders to adjust Brightness, Contrast, RGB, values, Sharpness, etc.

Features:

FocusOn supports 100+ image file formats. You can also view and delete the EXIF data, batch rename files using a standard file naming format. It also has an inbuilt image editor.

Format: JPG, PNG, GIF, BMP, TIF, JP2, J2K, PSD, AI, EPS, CR2, NEF, ARW, DNG, RAW, and 100+ image formats

Pros:

• Inbuilt photo editor without damaging the original
• Inbuilt sharing support to your Blog, Twitter, Facebook
• Viewing and deleting EXIF data
• Batch renaming of files
• Email sharing option

Cons:

• Cannot view photos inside an archived folder

Download FocusOn Image Viewer: Windows 10

8. JPEGView

JPEGView can be considered as a free and open-source alternative for ACDSee. The main emphasis of the tool is quick editing. Hence, the preview bar comes loaded with brightness, color, and contrast adjustment sliders at the bottom.

Features:

It has an inbuilt image file browser. The editing tools are quite extensive and easily accessible on the Preview page. You can also set up a slideshow of multiple images within a folder.

Pros:

• An extensive set of editing tools
• Supports renaming and converting in batch

Cons:

• Lacks extensive EXIF data and a print button

Download JPEGView: Windows 10

9. QuickLook

QuickLook is a photo viewer for Windows 10 that was developed to replicate the quick preview action on macOS. Its smooth loading interface and quick response time bring it on par with Apple’s QuickLook feature. Hence the name. If you haven’t used QuickLook on Mac, it works with a simple spacebar tap to preview the image and again a click to close it.

Features:

QuickLook quietly runs in the background and listens for the hotkey’s trigger. A few different hotkeys are available to control the environment of the file are available. It not only supports image preview but also lets you view PDF, PSDs, text files, etc.

Format: images, videos, PSD, PDF and text files.

Pros:

• Open source and free
• Quick and responsive

Cons:

• It doesn’t actually have an option to manipulate the files on its own

Download Quicklook: Windows 10

10. Nomacs

Nomacs is an open-source, free to use image viewer for Windows 10 which has a lot of tricks up its sleeve.

Features:

Nomacs offers mosaic generation by overlaying a database of images based on similar histograms. My favorite feature is the synchronization of multiple instances. This enables me to easily compare images by zooming in or panning at the exact same position or even by overlaying them with different opacity.

Nomacs not only reads images in the zip archives but even previews MS office documents. You can also add notes to images to keep track of their origin. Nomacs includes image manipulation methods for adjusting brightness, contrast, saturation, hue, gamma, and exposure.

You can activate cache in the settings and reduce image switch times

Format: It supports all the popular image formats including camera raw formats.

Pros:

• Quickly compare multiple images

Cons:

• Recent updates have made it slow

Download Nomacs: Windows 10

11. 123 Photo Viewer

123 Photo Viewer is a light and fast photo viewer for Windows 10 with support for OneDrive.

Features:

The UI is easy to navigate and it comes with plenty of filters and effects for basic editing. There is a slideshow viewer included for reliving those memories. There is support for batch rename and format change.

Formats: JPEG, GIF, PNG, WEBP, etc.

Pros:

• Supports OneDrive
• Slideshow mode
• Batch rename and format change

Cons:

• Can’t autodetect and auto-scan folders with images

Download 123 Photo Viewer: Windows 10

12. Movavi Photo Manager

If you are looking for an advanced photo viewer, Movavi is really cool. Movavi comes with face recognition built-in (just like Google Photos) allowing it to group photos of the same person in the same folder. However, for that to work, you will have to add images to Movavi manually. It makes life so much easier and fun.

The UI is pretty and you can sort images by geolocation, date, and other metadata. Useful for pictures taken on smartphones and DSLR. You can also use the search function to sort by metadata.

Pros:

• Face recognition and album creation
• Search and group images by metadata
• Find and remove duplicate images
• Can handle tens and thousands of images

Cons:

• Images have to be uploaded to the app
• Search lacks contextual queries

Download Movavi Photo Manager: Windows 10 ($8)

Final Thoughts: Best Photo Viewer for Windows 10

Every software has its own selling point and we have listed quite a few. Most of them are free and some are open source. Irfanview takes the spot because of its lightning-fast interface. If you want app portability, FastStone is something that you can carry on a flash drive. Xnview and Nomacs are best for handling images in batch for either renaming them or converting them to a more compatible image format.