a minimal, elegant image viewer inspired by the art of melody.
AuraView is a minimalist photo viewer designed to stay out of your way. No clutter. No unnecessary controls. Just your images — fast and clear.
It focuses on:
- ⚡ Speed
- 🧼 Clean interface
- 🖼️ Smooth image viewing
- 🪶 Lightweight footprint
- Python 3.14.2 (Tested)
- pandas
- pillow
- pillow_heif
- View photos smoothly and instantly
- Supports Apple image formats (including HEIF/HEIC)
- Keyboard-based image navigation
- User settings at
~/.config/auraview/settings.json - Dark/light theme and configurable GUI font
- Image zoom with reset view shortcuts and Ctrl + mouse wheel
- Ctrl + left-mouse drag panning for zoomed images
- Mouse wheel, middle-button drag, and horizontal tilt-wheel canvas scrolling
- Image rotation support
- In-place rotation (changes persist)
- Copy images to another location
- Move images between directories
- Directory input loads images recursively by default; use
--non-recursiveto only load that folder - GUI open/move/copy pickers use Zenity when available, with Tk fallback
Install AuraView using pip:
pip install auraviewLaunch AuraView:
auraviewLaunching without arguments opens an empty viewer. It no longer scans the current directory automatically.
Open a specific directory recursively:
auraview /path/to/folderOpen only images directly inside a directory:
auraview /path/to/folder --non-recursiveOpen a specific image file:
auraview /path/to/image.jpgShow version:
auraview --version
auraview -vShow help:
auraview --help
auraview -hShow author:
auraview --author
auraview -aShow author email:
auraview --email
auraview -eShow release date:
auraview --date
auraview -dAuraView creates and reads user settings from:
~/.config/auraview/settings.jsonExample:
{
"ui": {
"font_family": "Arial",
"font_size": 12,
"tk_scaling": 1.0,
"window_width": 900,
"window_height": 700,
"theme": "dark"
}
}The GUI file and folder pickers use zenity automatically when it is installed on Linux. If zenity is installed and you cancel it, AuraView treats that as a cancelled selection and does not open a Tk fallback. If zenity is not available, AuraView falls back to the built-in Tk dialogs.
Supported themes are dark and light. You can also temporarily override these at launch:
auraview --theme light --font_family "DejaVu Sans" --font_size 13 --tk_scaling 1.1