pavlovtech / quicklook

Bring macOS “Quick Look” feature to Windows

QuickLook

Background

One of the few features I missed from macOS is Quick Look. It allows users to peek into a file content in lightning speed by just pressing the Space key. Windows, on the other hand, does not have this handy feature ... until now!

I am aware that several alternatives are already available on the Internet (e.g. WinQuickLook and Seer). Despite these options, I still decided to craft another one by myself, because they are either not being actively developed, lack of variety, or ask for some 💵.

Highlights

• Tons of supported file types (full list here)
• Fluent design
• Touchscreen friendly
• HiDPI support
• Preview from Open and Save File Dialog
• Preview from 3rd-party file managers (see a list here)
• Easily extended by plugins
• Strict GPL license to keep it free forever

Usage

Download/Installation

Get it from one of the following sources:

• Microsoft Store (Windows 10 users only, no preview in open/save-dialogs available)
• Installer or portable archive of the stable version from GitHub Release
• Nightly builds from AppVeyor

What are the differences between .msi, .zip, Nightly and Store versions?

Note: Don't forget to check out the plugins for previewing office-files, epubs, fonts and more!

Typical usecase

1. Run QuickLook.exe (only necessary if autostart is disabled)
2. Select any file or folder (on the Desktop, in a File Explorer window, in an Open or Save-File dialogue, doesn't matter)
3. Press Spacebar
4. Enjoy the preview and interact with it
5. Preview next file by clicking on it or using arrow-keys (arrow-keys move selection in the background if the preview window is not in focus)
6. When you're done close it by either hitting Spacebar again, pressing Esc or clicking the ⨉ button

Hotkeys and buttons

• Spacebar Show/Hide the preview window
• Esc Hide the preview window
• Enter Open/Execute current file
• Mouse ↑ ↓ ← → Preview another file
• Mouse Wheel Zoom in/out (images)
• Ctrl+Mouse Wheel Zoom in/out (PDFs)
• Wheel Increase/decrease volume

Supported file types, file manager integration, etc.

See the Wiki page

Translations

See the Translation guide

Thanks to

• Many open-source projects and their contributors
• Our UI designers @OiCkilL (“Fluent” user interface since v0.3), @QubitsDev (app-icon v0.3-v3.6.9) and Donno (app-icon since v3.6.10)
• Our contributers who
  • teach QuickLook to speak your language
  • send pull requests, report bugs or give suggestions
• ... and you 😊

Licenses

This project references many other open-source projects. See here for the full list.

All source codes are licensed under GPL-3.0.

If you want to make any modification on these source codes while keeping new codes not protected by GPL-3.0, please contact me for a sublicense instead.