README

Fly Photos 

Fly Photos is one of the fastest photo viewers for Windows, designed as a modern replacement for the now-discontinued Google Picasa Photo Viewer.  
Built with WinUI 3, WinRT, and Win2D, it delivers smooth animations, instant startup, and an efficient viewing experience.  



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Watch Fly Photos in action:  



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 📥 Download


	



- Purchasing Fly Photos from the Microsoft Store is the best way to support the ongoing development of the project.
- You can also support via a donation at  . After donating, please email [email protected], and I will send you a Store promo code

 Difference Between GitHub Release and Store Release
|  | Microsoft Store | GitHub MSI | 
| -- | -- | -- |
| Price | 🪙 Paid | 🆓 Free |
| Updates | ✅ Seamless auto-updates | ❌ User-managed |
| Security | ✅ Signed and certified by Microsoft | ❌ Not signed |

Both builds are the same app, with the same features.

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 📦 Installation

- Option 1 : Install from Microsoft Store
- Option 2 : Download the MSI for your architecture (x64 or ARM64) from the GitHub Releases Page

Requires Windows 10 version 1809 (build 17763) or newer, on x64 or ARM64.


 🚀 Getting Started

Once installed, you can open photos in three ways:

 1. Context Menu (Right-Click)
Right-click an image, select "Open with", and choose Fly Photos from the list.

 2. Standalone Mode
Launch Fly Photos directly from the Start menu, then use the file picker to browse to a folder or image.

 3. Set as Default App
To open images with Fly Photos automatically when you double-click them:
1. Right-click an image file (e.g., a .jpg).
2. Select "Open With" → "Choose Another App", pick FlyPhotos, and click Always.
3. Repeat for other file types (PNG, WEBP, etc.) as needed.

 Tip: to change many types at once, go to Windows Settings → Apps → Default apps → FlyPhotos and set the file types there.

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 ✨ Features

- Fast and lightweight
  - Instant startup with a Native AOT build.
  - In-memory and disk caching for smooth navigation even in folders with thousands of photos.
  - Fly-through mode - press and hold ← / → and glide through a large folder with no loading spinners.
  - Tight Explorer integration. Follows Explorer's sort order and filtering (Recent, Search, etc.).

- Image format support
  - Everything the Windows Imaging Component handles (JPEG, PNG, TIFF, BMP, camera RAW, and any format you have a WIC codec installed for).
  - Extended support for PSD (with transparency), HEIC/HEIF, AVIF, SVG, GIF, APNG, animated WebP, and DDS.
  - Camera RAW with a configurable decoder order - Rawler (fastest), WIC (system codecs), or ImageMagick (best compatibility) - plus an option to decode the real RAW data instead of the embedded JPEG.
  - Multi-page TIFF and multi-frame ICO, with page-by-page navigation.

- Viewing experience
  - Transparent background like Picasa Photo Viewer, or Mica, Acrylic, Frozen Glass, or a solid colour of your choice.
  - Light, dark, or system theme.
  - Smooth pan, zoom, and rotat

Top issues

Latest release

❤️ Support FlyPhotos' development by sponsoring or by downloading from Microsoft Store




	


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✨ New Features & Improvements

- Folder mode (Settings  Behaviour  Build photo list from). Fly can now build the photo list from the photo's folder instead of the Explorer window, sorted by name, date modified, date created or size, ascending or descending.
  - Live folder monitoring. Images that are added, removed or renamed on disk show up in the right place without reopening Fly. New files appear only after they are fully written. (234)
  - Sibling folder navigation. Ctrl+PageUp