Preview icon
Preview icon

Preview

Native macOS app for viewing, annotating, and editing images and PDFs, featuring tools for cropping, rotating, resizing images, rearranging pages, full-screen viewing, markup, document merging, batch conversion, and export in multiple formats.

Preview screenshot 1

Cost / License

  • Free
  • Proprietary

Application type

Platforms

  • Mac  Included in macOS.
  • iPhone
  • iPad
Preview screenshot 1
Preview screenshot 2
+6
Preview screenshot 3
Preview alternatives  
125likes
193alternatives
2articles
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Features

Properties

  1.  Lightweight

Features

  1.  Edit PDF
  2.  Fill PDF Forms
  3.  Image resizing
  4.  Built-in Image converter
  5.  PDF annotation
  6.  E-signature
  7.  Combine PDF
  8.  Cloud Sync
  9.  Batch Editing
  10.  Built-in viewer
  11.  OCR
  12.  Split PDF files
  13.  PDF compression
  14.  Ad-free
  15.  Full-Text Search
  16.  Works Offline
  17.  Dark Mode
  18.  Hardware Accelerated
  19.  Image Optimizer
  20.  Image Conversion

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Preview News & Activities

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Comments and Reviews

   
Comment summary: Preview is praised for its versatility in editing images and viewing PDFs, offering features like annotations and file conversions. Users appreciate its simplicity and multi-format support, but some criticize the lack of efficient image browsing and certain PDF viewing features, such as unwanted phone number detection. While some find Preview indispensable, others are frustrated by its limitations and have sought alternative applications.
Top Positive Comment
Deviated
0

This is not what preview most usefully does on MacOS. You can preview any file in finder via pressing the "space" button if you have an app that opens that file and supports preview feature. It's necessary for every OS.

JackBarker
Replying to @Deviated

Yes, you can, but that is a Finder function, which is not at all the same as the app "Preview."

Top Negative Comment
keofox
0

It is not a good image viewer and not a good PDF viewer, either. For images, it won't allow me go through all images in a directory, such a basic functionality! For PDFs, it thinks every number is a phone number and makes it difficult to copy that number to the clipboard (no way to disable that). I had to stop using it completely and find alternatives for image previews and PDF viewing. So it is a totally useless app for me.

Duncan Briggs
1

"You still cannot disable Data Detectors in Preview. Not even from the Terminal with the defaults command."

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255513312?sortBy=best

Hyperbioghost
0

The worst there can ever be. If you're from Win and new to macOS, especially use Mac for work, don't even bother to try using this god-be-cursing-it app. This sht is going to ruin ur life! Oh, why u might be wondering? It opens one image at a time, meaning you cannot click on an arrow button or hit the arrow key to view the next image. So if you want to see the next image, or any other image, u need to head back to the Finder, locate the image u wanna view, then double click on it to view it manually. Of course, some might say "oh u've been doing it in a wrong way this is THE MAC don't think of it as if it's the ugly hopeless Win u need to select all the images u wanna view then open the Preview app that's how u...." Man don't listen to their bull sht, find urself a decent proper image viewer that's not gonna waste ur time. I'm doing it now here. Or, if u may, head back to Win and leave all these shts behind. Sometimes, one can pretend that shts don't exist by simply ignoring them.

Review from a new or low-activity account — shown here, but not counted in the app rating.
Piztol
0

If you need some thing to view PDF and pictures, and sometime do some basic edit, Preview is absolutely a good tool.

kscalvert
0

I work a lot with images and PDF documents on Linux, Mac, and Windows system. I have tried a lot of image viewers, image editing tools, and PDF viewers. This one is, by far, the best image viewer I have used and gives one the ability to do basic image markup and manipulation. It also allows markup of PDF documents.

It also is very good at performing basic conversion of image and PDFs files from one format to another.

I've tried other image/PDF viewers but I keep coming back to Preview because of its capabilities.

Thelle Christensen
0

Preview is simply beautiful!! It is so simple and just works as expected for viewing, light formatting and annotations! On top of that it supports a bunch of file-formats including RAW, even microsoft documents formats and lets you edit and sign PDF-files. I absolutely love it!

One downside is that I can't flick through my pictures easily in preview, but really my only complaint!

7 of 10 comments

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Official Links

AppStores & Other Links

Download from iPhone App Store

What is Preview?

Preview is a simple and elegant application by Apple for viewing and working with images and PDF documents.

With a single click, Preview takes your PDF document full screen for an ideal reading or viewing experience. Quickly select text or images and copy and paste them into other applications. Move individual pages around or delete pages altogether, and combine documents with a drag and drop. Easy-to-use annotation tools let you add markup or editorial comments for sharing with others.

You can also view and edit images. Crop, rotate, resize, and save images in a range of formats. Enhance your image files using several Core Image-powered adjustments for easy control over color, exposure, and sharpness.

Preview information

AlternativeTo Categories

Photos & Graphics, Office & Productivity, System & Hardware

Apple AppStore

  •   Updated 
  •   1.88 avg rating
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Our users have written 10 comments and reviews about Preview, and it has gotten 125 likes

Preview was added to AlternativeTo by genba on and this page was last updated .