Best Photo Viewers for Linux of 2025

digiKam is a sophisticated, open-source software designed for managing digital photos, compatible with Linux, Windows, and macOS platforms. This application offers an extensive array of features for importing, organizing, editing, and sharing photos as well as raw image files. With digiKam’s seamless import functionality, users can effortlessly transfer images, raw files, and videos from their cameras or external storage like SD cards and USB drives. The software allows customization of import settings and rules, enabling automatic processing and organization of the imported files in real-time. In addition to categorizing photos and videos into albums, digiKam includes robust tagging options, enabling users to assign tags, ratings, and labels for easier management. Users can leverage the filtering features to swiftly locate items that meet particular criteria, making it an efficient tool for photo organization. Furthermore, the application boasts advanced search capabilities that allow users to explore their photo library based on a diverse range of parameters, enhancing the overall user experience and efficiency in managing extensive photo collections.

darktable serves as a free and open-source application designed for photography workflows and raw image development. It acts as both a virtual lighttable and darkroom, providing photographers with the ability to manage their digital negatives through a comprehensive database and offering a zoomable interface for viewing. The application enables users to develop raw images while enhancing them, benefiting from the insights of its developers—many of whom are passionate photographers themselves—who understand common challenges and workflows in the field. Importantly, darktable supports non-destructive editing throughout its entire processing pipeline, ensuring that your original images remain untouched. With professional-grade color management features, darktable guarantees accuracy all the way to print, and its GPU-accelerated processing allows for a more efficient workflow by leveraging your video card. Engaging with the darktable community does not require coding skills; you can contribute by sharing your thoughts on the mailing list or participating in the forum. Additionally, if you wish to showcase the capabilities of darktable, consider contributing to its Flickr page to inspire others. Overall, darktable fosters a collaborative environment for photographers of all skill levels to enhance their craft while enjoying a versatile set of tools.

Nomacs is an open-source image viewer that is available for various platforms at no cost. It allows you to view a wide range of image formats, including RAW and PSD files. The application incorporates semi-transparent widgets that provide additional details such as thumbnails, metadata, and histograms. Users can also access images within zip files or Microsoft Office documents and extract them to a designated folder. The viewer displays embedded metadata and enables users to add personal notes to images. Additionally, it features a thumbnail preview of the current directory along with a file explorer panel for easy navigation between folders. Within a directory, users can apply filters to display only those images that meet specific filename criteria or patterns. Furthermore, by activating the cache feature, users can seamlessly switch between images, enhancing the overall experience. This functionality makes nomacs a versatile tool for both casual users and professionals alike.

With an emphasis on space efficiency and minimalism, qView eliminates toolbars and distractions, allowing users to focus solely on their images. From its inception, the software has been crafted to ensure a visually uncluttered experience, presenting only the image along with a title bar. Users can access their images without delay, as qView launches almost instantly, and transitioning between images is equally swift while maintaining low memory and CPU usage. Additionally, qView offers a wide range of customizable settings to cater to diverse user preferences, enhancing the overall viewing experience. It accommodates all standard image formats such as bmp, gif, jpg, png, tiff, and webp, ensuring versatility across various use cases. Regardless of the operating system, qView aims to deliver a native and seamless performance. As an entirely free and open-source tool based on Qt5, it is readily available on GitHub under the GPLv3 license. The software also comes with localization support, featuring numerous translations contributed by the community. Furthermore, when zooming in past a certain threshold, images revert to their original resolution, ensuring clarity and eliminating blurriness during close-ups. This thoughtful design prioritizes user satisfaction and efficiency in image viewing.

A web-based digital image organizer that prioritizes your privacy by enabling you to scan local files without the need to upload personal photos to a cloud service, thus preventing large corporations from having access to your private images. This tool ensures non-destructive editing, meaning your original files remain untouched unless you decide to empty the trash. It supports a wide array of photo formats including JPG, PNG, TIF, WebP, and HEIC/HEIF, and can also read various raw formats from numerous camera brands, although this feature is exclusive to Mac and Linux users. You can easily navigate through your photo library by date, and enjoy detailed views with zoom functionality. Additionally, it allows you to view EXIF data, apply tags, mark favorites, and perform basic editing tasks such as rotating, tilting, cropping, or deleting images, making it a comprehensive solution for your photo management needs. With these features combined, it offers an efficient way to organize and maintain your photo collection while safeguarding your personal information.

Ristretto Image Viewer is a versatile application designed for viewing and navigating through images effortlessly. It allows users to create slideshows, open images in external applications such as image-editing tools, or set an image as their desktop wallpaper. The application supports various image formats through the gdk-pixbuf library, which inherently accommodates a selection of common image types like JPEG, PNG, and TIFF. However, to broaden the spectrum of formats available in Ristretto, users may need to install additional libraries themselves, such as libwmf, libopenraw, libavif, libheif, libjxl, librsvg, and webp-pixbuf-loader. These optional libraries enable support for a wider array of image types beyond those originally included. The following section provides guidance on utilizing Ristretto and customizing it according to your specific preferences, ensuring an optimal user experience. Additionally, discovering these features can greatly enhance your image viewing and management capabilities.

This application is designed to pre-load image data efficiently and render the imported visuals on the screen using OpenGL technology. Users can now experience a significantly smoother image browsing experience compared to previous versions. It also supports 2 Page Spread viewing, allowing for simultaneous display of two images, making it ideal for digital comics and books. To select images, users can either navigate through the main menu to choose a folder via a dialog box or simply drag and drop a folder containing image files directly from Windows Explorer into the application window for quick access. This flexibility enhances usability and streamlines the process of viewing multiple images simultaneously.

PhotoQt is an image viewing application that boasts a clean and straightforward interface, while also offering a wealth of features beneath its surface. Among its notable functionalities, users can directly set an image as their wallpaper from within the app, and it allows for the display of Exif data, which includes the ability to tag faces. Furthermore, the list of features is not comprehensive, and the developers encourage users to propose new ideas for enhancements. Overall, PhotoQt combines simplicity with powerful capabilities for an enjoyable user experience.

Designed with simplicity and elegance in mind, Viewnior features a minimalistic interface that maximizes screen space for your images. Its development drew inspiration from major projects like Eye of Gnome, known for its rich usability, and GPicView, appreciated for its lightweight design and straightforward interface. Thus, Viewnior emerges as a compact and nimble application, ensuring high-quality functionality without any trade-offs. Additionally, the software is crafted for improved integration, adhering to the Gnome HIG2 guidelines for a seamless user experience. This thoughtful approach to design makes Viewnior a standout choice for image viewing.

Ephoto serves as both an image viewer and editor, utilizing the Enlightenment Foundation Libraries (EFL) to ensure a user-friendly experience with a focus on simplicity and efficiency. It capitalizes on the rapid performance and minimal resource consumption of EFL, which was originally introduced in the 1990s by Carsten "Rasterman" Haitzler as a straightforward Window Manager (WM) for X11. Over the years, EFL has evolved significantly, now encompassing around one million lines of C code and a wide array of applications. The community surrounding Enlightenment is robust and engaged, with numerous developers and users contributing to and benefiting from the software on a daily basis. Ephoto includes a range of editing capabilities, such as cropping, automatic enhancements, blurring, sharpening, and adjustments for brightness, contrast, gamma, hue, saturation, and color levels. Additionally, users can apply creative filters like black and white or vintage effects to their images. With a user-friendly grid view, Ephoto makes it easy to navigate the filesystem and showcase images effectively, enhancing the overall user experience. Ultimately, Ephoto combines powerful editing tools with a streamlined interface, making it a valuable tool for anyone looking to work with images.

Photivo is a free and open-source photo editing software licensed under GPL3 that supports both RAW and bitmap formats, including TIFF, JPEG, BMP, and PNG, while employing a non-destructive 16-bit processing pipeline that integrates seamlessly with GIMP and features batch processing capabilities. This software endeavors to utilize the most effective algorithms available, which may lead to some redundancy, but it strives to deliver the most adaptable and powerful denoising, sharpening, and local contrast (simulated HDR) methods within the realm of open-source tools. Although it might not be the easiest to master, users are encouraged to contribute to its development if they find alternatives lacking; however, achieving optimal results can involve a significant learning curve. Photivo is designed to work alongside other applications like digiKam, F-Spot, Shotwell, and GIMP, rather than functioning as a standalone solution. It requires a robust computer system and is primarily geared towards more experienced users rather than beginners, making it essential for those serious about photo processing. Ultimately, Photivo represents a powerful option for users looking to enhance their photographic projects with sophisticated tools.

XnView MP/Classic serves as a free image viewer that allows users to effortlessly open and modify their photo files. This viewer is compatible with a wide range of popular image formats, including JPEG, TIFF, PNG, GIF, WEBP, PSD, JPEG2000, OpenEXR, camera RAW, HEIC, PDF, DNG, and CR2. Among its many features, XnView MP offers color adjustments, image resizing, cropping, screen capturing, and metadata editing capabilities for IPTC and XMP. With its user-friendly, explorer-like interface, it not only facilitates quick viewing of images and photos but also enhances image management tasks. Users can take advantage of functionalities such as batch renaming, batch conversion, duplicate image detection, and image comparison, while also having the ability to create contact sheets and slideshows to showcase their work in a visually appealing manner. Overall, XnView MP is a comprehensive solution for anyone looking to manage and edit their image collection efficiently.

Explore and modify comments and Exif data with ease, as this software supports various metadata formats, including Exif, IPTC, and XMP. It provides quick previews for numerous raw image formats along with many others. While Geeqie comes with excellent default settings, it also allows for extensive customization, which can be accessed through the Preferences menu. Additionally, it seamlessly integrates with other applications, enabling you to open images in your preferred editing software without hassle. This flexibility makes it a powerful tool for both casual users and professionals alike.

Gwenview, developed by KDE, serves as a quick and user-friendly image viewer, perfect for exploring and showcasing a variety of images. It provides straightforward image editing options, enabling users to rotate, mirror, invert, and resize their pictures with ease. Additionally, it supports fundamental file management tasks, including copying, moving, and deleting files, among various other functions. Users can utilize it as a standalone program or integrate it seamlessly within the Konqueror web browser for enhanced functionality. This flexibility makes Gwenview an excellent choice for anyone needing an efficient tool for managing and viewing images.

The software provides compatibility for an array of image formats including BMP, Dr. Halo CUT, DDS, EXR, Raw Fax G3, GIF, HDR, ICO, IFF, JBIG, JNG, JPEG/JIF, JPEG-2000, JPEG-XR, KOALA, Kodak PhotoCD, MNG, PCX, PBM/PGM/PPM, PFM, PNG, Macintosh PICT, Photoshop PSD, RAW camera formats, Sun RAS, SGI, TARGA, TIFF, WBMP, WebP, XBM, and XPM, alongside newer formats like PFM, SVG, AVIF, and HEIC. Additionally, it supports various video formats such as MPEG4, AVI, MKV, WebP, Y4M, AV1, QuickTime, and AVCHD, while also incorporating DXVA2 acceleration support for enhanced playback. Users can easily open DMG files and transfer RegardsViewer to their Applications folder. A new feature has been added to allow users to link to external applications for video and image editing, addressing previous issues such as crashes that occurred when the space bar was held down after selecting a video thumbnail and fixing bugs related to disappearing scrollbars on thumbnail videos and effects. This update enhances user experience by streamlining the editing process and resolving prior inconsistencies.

Shotwell is compatible with a variety of photo formats including JPEG, PNG, TIFF, BMP, GIF, WebP, and RAW files. However, its support for RAW formats is somewhat restricted, as viewing a RAW image actually presents a JPEG version derived from the original RAW file rather than the RAW image itself. Furthermore, the editing capabilities for RAW files are not fully 16-bit, limiting exports to 8-bit file formats. Users can export most supported formats, including JPEG, PNG, TIFF, and BMP. The Basic Information pane can be found at the bottom of the sidebar, providing a concise overview of the selected photos, while if no photos are highlighted, it gives a summary of the whole collection. You can easily toggle this pane's visibility through the information command. Additionally, the map pane is integrated into the Basic Information section, offering a visual summary of the photos you’ve chosen; if there are no selections, it will showcase an overview of the entire collection. This feature enhances the user experience by allowing for quick navigation and better organization of photos.

Eye of GNOME serves as a versatile image viewer capable of displaying nearly any image format. It allows users to organize extensive image libraries and features a slideshow function for presenting images in sequence. Additionally, basic photo editing options are available, such as rotating, flipping, and converting images to various file formats. When double-clicking an image file in the file manager, the Image Viewer should launch automatically; if it doesn't, you may need to set it as your default image viewer. The application also offers zoom capabilities, enabling users to either view an entire large image or focus on finer details. It intelligently determines the file format for saving images based on the selected extension, making the process smoother. Should you encounter an unfamiliar file extension, you can click on Supported Image Files in the Save Image dialog to explore a list of compatible formats. This feature ensures that users can easily choose the appropriate file type without confusion. Using Eye of GNOME simplifies the management and viewing of images, enhancing the overall user experience.

Feh is a minimalist image viewer for X11, primarily designed for users who prefer console-based interactions. Instead of featuring a complex graphical interface, it straightforwardly presents images and allows for navigation through command line inputs and customizable key or mouse controls. Users can easily initiate a slideshow that cycles through all images in a specified directory, either manually with keyboard inputs or automatically at set intervals. Additionally, feh is widely available across various Linux and BSD distributions, such as Arch Linux, Debian, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and Ubuntu, making it a popular choice among users who appreciate its simplicity. This accessibility across multiple platforms contributes to its reputation as a reliable tool for viewing images without unnecessary distractions.

When you have a vast collection of images stored on your hard drive, it can be quite challenging to recall the context of each photo or the identities of the individuals captured in them. KPhotoAlbum was developed to provide a solution for organizing and describing your images, allowing for swift and effective searches through your extensive gallery. With KPhotoAlbum, you can locate any specific image in under five seconds by utilizing its robust tagging system, whether you are looking for a photo featuring a particular person, one taken in a specific location, or a combination of both. The process of adding tags is streamlined with KPhotoAlbum, making it highly efficient for labeling images, and with a little practice, you can tag hundreds of photos in no time. This not only enhances your ability to find images later but also enriches your overall experience of managing your photo collection.