A fast, keyboard-driven image viewer for macOS. Open any image and ←/→ step instantly through the rest of its folder; a full-window thumbnail grid, with an enlarged preview on hover, swaps in for jumping around. It opens every image format macOS can decode, plus SVG. PDFs stay with Preview. Turn on View → Include Subfolders for a folder and everything under it becomes one stream, oldest first, with month headers in the grid — a whole screenshots archive browsed in order. Hand it a handful of files and they open as a set; hand it labelled groups of files and it lays the variants out side by side for comparing.
If you've used Xee, it's the same idea: arrow through a folder, as fast as the disk allows. glance is free and open source.
Model renders adapted from Big Buck Bunny © Blender Foundation, CC BY 3.0.
Needs macOS 14+.
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/lockyc/glance/main/install.sh | bash
glance --make-default # optional: the default viewer for every image type except PDFThe installer downloads the latest release, checks that it is signed by glance's developer and
notarized by Apple, then installs /Applications/glance.app and links the glance command into
~/.local/bin, which must be on your PATH. After that glance updates itself: it checks daily,
and glance → Check for Updates… checks now. From a clone of this repo,
Claude Code's /glance:install runs the same install and checks the command works from a new
shell.
Or build from source, with the Xcode command-line tools (Swift 6) and
just:
git clone https://github.com/lockyc/glance && cd glance
just install # builds glance.app into /Applications and links `glance` into ~/.local/bin
just make-default # makes glance the default viewer for every image type except PDFOpening a file shows it in its folder; opening a folder (or dropping one on the Dock icon) opens the grid. A file anywhere inside a folder with Include Subfolders on opens that whole tree, at that file. Individual subfolders can be excluded from the View → Subfolders submenu or glance → Settings….
Viewer
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| ← / → | Previous / next image (wraps) |
| Home / End | First / last image |
| G or Space | Thumbnail grid |
| F or ⌃⌘F | Toggle full screen |
| Esc | Leave full screen, otherwise thumbnail grid |
| E or ⌘E | Edit in Excerpt (PNG only) |
| ⌘C | Copy the image (pastes as the file, or as a picture) |
| ⌘R | Show in Finder |
| ⌘↑ | Browse the image's folder (from a set or comparison) |
| Right-click | Browse Folder, Show in Finder, Edit in Excerpt, Copy |
| 0 / 1 | Fit to window / actual size |
| + / − | Zoom in / out |
| Pinch or ⌘-scroll | Zoom about the cursor |
| Drag, or scroll when zoomed | Pan |
| Drag when fitted | Drag the image out to another app |
| Double-click | Toggle fit ↔ actual size |
Grid
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| ← / → | Select the previous / next tile (across months) |
| ↑ / ↓ | Move the selection by row |
| Return or click | Open the image |
| ⌘-click / ⇧-click | Select several tiles |
| E or ⌘E | Edit the selected images in Excerpt, as one series (PNG only) |
| ⌘C | Copy the selected images |
| ⌘R | Show the selected images in Finder |
| ⌘↑ | Browse the selected image's folder (from a set or comparison) |
| Right-click | The same commands, on the clicked tile |
| Esc, G or Space | Back to the viewer |
| ⌘+ / ⌘− | Larger / smaller tiles (remembered) |
| Hover | Enlarged preview |
glance <folder> # open a folder
glance <file>... # open the files as a set
glance --variant <label> <file>... [--variant <label> <file>...]...
# compare labelled variants side by sideA set is just the files you name, in that order; it is never rescanned and Include Subfolders
doesn't apply. A comparison takes one or more --variant groups: each group is a column and each
file in it a row, so the first file of every variant sits on the first row (a shorter variant
leaves its remaining cells empty). Opening a cell keeps the grid's edges in view: every variant
along the top and every shot down the left, the current ones highlighted, and a map of the whole
grid in the corner; click a label or a map cell to jump there. View → Show Comparison Context hides
them (remembered). Every set or comparison opens in a new window; a single
folder reuses its existing window.
Comparison
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| Arrows (grid) | Move the selection between cells |
| ← / → (viewer) | Same shot in the previous / next variant |
| ↑ / ↓ (viewer) | Previous / next shot in the same variant |
| Return or click | Open the cell in the viewer |
| Click a header or the map (viewer) | Open that cell |
| G / Space / Esc (grid) | Open the viewer on the current cell |
| G / Space / Esc (viewer) | Back to the grid (Esc leaves full screen first) |
| ⌘+ / ⌘− | Larger / smaller cells (remembered) |
Everything ImageIO decodes — JPEG, PNG, HEIC/HEIF, WebP, AVIF, JPEG XL, TIFF, BMP, GIF, ICO, ICNS, PSD, OpenEXR, TGA and camera RAW (CR2, CR3, NEF, ARW, RAF, ORF, DNG and more) — plus SVG. Animated GIF, WebP and APNG play. A file that won't decode shows "Can't open" in place and navigation carries on.
just test # unit tests
just bench # latency benchmarks
just run # build the bundle and open it