FeaturesDownloadsSupportNewsAbout

Visit PreviewQt

PhotoQt Image Viewer

PhotoQt v4.9

Published: 23rd of April, 2025

A new release for PhotoQt is ready with a bunch of additions and improvements and several bug fixes. This is a very exciting release, as there are some very exciting changes packed in it. Looking ahead, some big changes are in the works for v5.0.

Some of the highlights included in the more than 120 individual changes since the last release include:

• Masonry layout: There is a new layout for the files in the file dialog. The masonry layout refers to having all files scaled to the same width but their height varies depending on the photo. This will create a sort of picture wall. The thumbnail image will always be shown without anything clipped off. Note that due to it requiring some more processing to set up, this layout might be a tiny bit slower to set up than the other layouts, though it should be barely noticeable most of the time.

• Quick Actions: A new element is available with several quick actions. The quick actions include a bunch of buttons with actions related to any currently viewed image and PhotoQt itself. All of these actions are available in different ways already, but these will keep them accessible all the time immediately with a single click/tap.

• Network shares handling: By default, PhotoQt will now exclude any files residing on a network share from caching and/or preloading. PhotoQt tries its best to detect network shares. If it fails to do so for any network share you might have, please let me know. In those cases, you can also always manually exclude any folder (including subfolders) from the settings manager.

• Improved touch handling: The support for touch screens has been improved significantly for this release. Besides better touch handling in various elements (file dialog, etc.), there are various touch gestures that allow for an even better experience of using PhotoQt: When nothing is loaded yet, swiping left/right/up/down anywhere will show/hide whatever elements are hiding behind any edge. With something loaded, you can use your touch screen to manipulate the image as usual, but there are small areas in the middle along all the edges, and swiping towards the center of the window from those areas will show the respective elements hiding there. Please let me know if you have any feedback or suggestion regarding these gestures.

• Integrated window buttons: PhotoQt has been able to show various integrated window buttons (including buttons for navigation, etc.) in the upper right corner of the window for a long time. These buttons are now fully configurable and flexible, they can be sorted in any way and be shown only under certain conditions.

• Hardened setup: The whole setup of PhotoQt has been hardened significantly. You won't notice much while using PhotoQt, however, this reduces any possibly risk of corrupting the database significantly - and if your local database is corrupted it will continue to use any default value for any setting. You can also reset PhotoQt to its default state at any time with the hard-coded reset shortcut Ctrl+Shift+Alt+R. It will ask for confirmation of course, but once confirmed, this action cannot be undone. Also note, that you can now reset individual settings in the settings manager instead of only resetting all settings at once (which, of course, is also still possible).

Besides the additions and improvements listed above, some bug fixes in this version include:

• Fitting small images into the window now works in all cases again.
• Certain special characters in a filename could mess up loading some types of images.
• Mouse hover events in the file view will now always be registered and won't suddenly stop at times.
• Changing custom context menu entries no longer result in a randomly ordered context menu until the next restart.
• Setting some image properties globally happens only (and always) if an image is loaded as main image. This, amongst others, fixes browsing photo spheres that might not be interactive under certain conditions.
• Zooming an image with touch screen pinches no longer risks having the image disappear completely when the gesture has ended.

All of these are just some highlights, the most exciting additions and changes to this version. You can find a more complete list in the Changelog.

Looking ahead to v5.0

This is the last release of PhotoQt in the v4.x series (except a possible bug fix release v4.9.1). The next release, v5.0, will bring some major changes to the interface of PhotoQt. So far, PhotoQt used a highly customized design that, in my opinion, looks great. However, it does not necessarily integrate well into existing desktop environments. Barring any unforeseen issues, v5.0 will offer two different designs for PhotoQt: You can either continue to use PhotoQt as it is now, or you can switch to a different interface design that aims to look more native in whatever desktop environment you use. If you want to follow the progress on this work, I plan to track this work in issue #282 over on GitLab.

Get involved

I love to hear from people using PhotoQt. In order to get in touch with me for feedback/support/etc., the best way to do so is by opening an issue over in the GitLab repository: https://gitlab.com/lspies/photoqt

If this is not an option for you, then you can also always send me an email: (you need to enable javascript to see the email address)

If you want to help PhotoQt, there are a few ways you can get involved:

1. Join the translation team over on Crowdin. If your language is missing you can simply request it directly on Crowdin or send me an email and I can add it to the project.
2. Give feedback of what you like/don't like, or what you think is missing from PhotoQt. To give feedback, send me an email or open an issue on GitLab.

If you are considering supporting PhotoQt by donation, please consider donating to the humanitarian relief in Ukraine instead, for example to the Ukrainian Red Cross.

Enjoy PhotoQt,

Lukas