How Customizable Is PicView's Interface and Gallery?

Updated

PicView's interface customization covers three things you can change without touching config files: the theme (dark or light), whether the UI is visible at all, and whether hover controls appear. The gallery is a separate overlay you toggle with a keyboard shortcut. All of this is documented on the PicView site and works the same way on Windows 10/11 and macOS.

Theme and UI visibility

PicView ships with a dark and a light theme, and you can switch between them. Beyond color, the entire interface can be hidden so only the image remains on screen.

  • Toggle the UI: press Alt + Z. Pressing it again brings the interface back.
  • Move the window while the UI is hidden: hold Shift and drag.
  • Hover controls: the hover buttons and the hover menu can each be turned on or off in the settings window. If you find them distracting while browsing, this is where you disable them.

The practical effect is that PicView can behave like a bare image canvas when you want to look at a photo, and like a normal windowed app when you want to rename, resize, or read metadata.

What the interface gives you access to

Customization is mostly about getting controls out of the way, so it helps to know what you're hiding.

Element How to reach it What it shows or does
Image information window Press I (default) File information, printing size, megapixels, and EXIF data such as date taken and GPS location
Optimize Image button In the image info window Losslessly compresses the current image
EXIF rating Click the stars Saves an EXIF image rating
Rename / move Edit the corresponding text boxes Renames or moves the file
Resize Edit the Width or Height text boxes, or use the % keyboard button Changes image dimensions, including by percentage
Map lookup Google or Bing buttons Opens the map at the image's GPS coordinates, if coordinates are saved

The image information window updates as you browse from one image to the next, so you don't have to close and reopen it between files.

The image gallery

The gallery is an overlay with animated transitions that adapt to your screen size.

  • Open or close it: press G.
  • Navigate: arrow keys, or W, A, S, D.
  • Load the selected image: press Enter.

So the flow is: press G, move through thumbnails with the arrow keys or WASD, then press Enter to open the one you want. This is the fastest path when you're scanning a folder and only want to open a few files.

Where customization stops

Two limits are worth knowing before you commit:

  • Archive support has a dependency. Viewing images inside archives works for ZIP, RAR, CBR, and similar formats, but .7z and .cb7 require 7-Zip or WinRAR to be installed. The other archive formats don't have that requirement.
  • Portable vs installable is a separate decision. The portable version needs no installer, doesn't write to the registry, and doesn't need external libraries. If you want the app to leave no trace on a machine, that's the version to pick — but it's a different question from how the interface looks.

If your goal is simply a viewer that stays out of the way, the combination of Alt + Z for hiding the UI and disabling hover controls in settings gets you there. If your goal is fast folder browsing, G plus arrow keys or WASD is the workflow to learn.