Photo viewing app replacement

[Lisse]

For many years I used an app called ViewIt from a company/website called Hexcat. They closed down their site a few years ago, but the software still mostly works on macOS Monterey. I'm looking for a replacement and welcome suggestions.

The thing the app does that I've not been able to find in others are:
1. You can drag and drop folders and files into a blank window easily and quickly on the fly. (This does not move any folders or files on a disk.)
2. Any window you have can be given a name and the pointers to those photos are saved in a file. You can then select the filename and everything is quickly redisplayed.
3. The images in each window can be moved around in the window (and its file if you've saved it) for slide shows.
4. Although it has some capabilities for image modification and enhancement, those capabilities are not terribly important to me.
5. You can have multiple windows open concurrently and moving images from one to another is simple.

I've searched for a replacement but haven't found one that quite does the trick, so many are (understandably) focused on image modification and less so on ease of review and/or display.

If there are suggestions, please let me know.

Thank you for reading and any assistance.

 

[Slartibart]

while I now do many of actions in your list just simply via Quicklook (and some Applescript/Automator/Quick Actions) - saving some kind of alias of a slide show composed of some selected images I haven’t thought of so far.
I used Xee in the past (quite some past… mainly for speed at that time), if you haven’t, maybe you like to try it?

 

[Lisse]

Thank you for the reply and the suggestions. They don't quite have the functionality I am hoping to find, unfortunately. The search will continue.

Again, thanks.

 

[orionquest]

Adobe Bridge, is free to use. It's basically a file browser content usage app, without messing up your own file organization or asking you to create one.

 

[neutrino17]

You could take a look at GraphicConverter. They have a browser for looking at folders of images. I haven’t used the browser part in a while so it may have a lot of new features I’m not aware of.

If you can explain clearly what you want you could email the developer and ask his opinion. Thorsten Lemke is the most prolific developer I have ever encountered. It seems there is an update waiting every time I open the app. He is a great guy to communicate with.

This is shareware so you can try it for free. I can’t recall exactly when I started using this. Maybe System 7 or Mac OS 8? A long time ago.

 

[Fishrrman]

A couple of "photo browsers" I have:

Lyn -- works well enough "in free mode".

XnViewMP -- seems to be a "port" from a PC app, but it's free and works well enough for browsing. Can do some edits, as well.

 

[Lisse]

Thank you all for the suggestions. Actually I own and have been using GraphicConverter for a long time and I tried both Lyn and XnViewMP. None of them has the unique features/functions that ViewIt does. Still looking.

I have not yet tried Adobe Bridge but I will soon.

Again, thank you for taking the time.

 

[Ricebucket]

Just found this thread. I too am a huge fan of ViewIt. But I have not gotten it to work in recent versions of MacOS, including Monterey. I'm surprised you're saying it works? @Lisse

When I open up images, a blank window is shown. However, in the thumbnail view, I can still see the small thumbnails.

I really love the program. So much so that I would be willing to help fix the display bug if the original author would open-source it.

 

[Lisse]

It's good to hear that there's another ViewIt fan.

Among other features, I never quite learned to use "ViewIt Images..." from the File pull-down menu. The way I use it is by culling images in several directories into an instance of ViewIt and if I want to keep that group of images, I save it. macOS saves it as a .vii file I think. Then I can open that file next time.

There are some parts that don't work anymore. For example, when you "Mark" one or more images, you no longer get a count of the number that are marked. Oh well. My search will continue for another image viewer that allows you to create groups of images on the fly and other features.

Good luck. If I find a suitable replacement, I'll post about it.

 

[michael7136]

Add me to the list of ViewIt fans. In particular, I am looking for an app that will let me quickly mark/unmark multiple images so I can move/copy/delete them in bulk before moving to my next step in editing photos.

I found an app that came close (ISee Pro) but it doesn't work consistently (ie it's buggy).

 

[jcallows]

Wow, I thought I was the only one! I've been looking for a replacement for ViewIt for years. I mainly use it to organize and rename a bunch of random photos. It allows you to order the photos any way you like simply by dragging and dropping them anywhere on the screen. Then it'll number the photos in the order you placed them. Sounds like a basic function all photo organizers should have but they don't. Many can rename and re-number the photos according to a few set criteria like by date or by alphabetical order but they don't allow you to arrange them in a custom order. So frustrating.

 

[MrPonce]

I'm also a fan and still looking ...

 

[mousee9]

Go to settings/viewing and click the background option to turn the background black.

 

[mousee9]

Viewit blank screen solution.
Go to settings/viewing and click the background option to turn the background black.