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Lumen app iconLumen

A RAW, WebP and JPEG XL viewer for Mac

Lumen is a quiet, fast photo viewer for people who keep photos in folders. Open a folder and see everything in it, RAW straight from the camera included, with nothing to import. Type “red hat” or “Kyoto” and it finds the photo.

Opens everything

JPEG, PNG, HEIC, WebP, AVIF, JPEG XL, GIF, TIFF, PSD, and RAW from Canon, Nikon, Sony and Fujifilm cameras: 25+ formats with no plugins. Folders open immediately and stay smooth at 10,000 photos; hold an arrow key to scrub through a whole shoot.

Folder-first, not library-first

Subfolders appear as tiles, the path bar is clickable all the way up, and new files show up the moment they land. Copy, paste, duplicate, rename and trash with undo, right in the viewer. Your folders stay exactly as they are.

Search what is in your photos

Describe a photo in your own words, like “people on a beach at sunset”, and smart search finds it with an on-device model. It also finds the words visible inside photos and where and when they were taken, in one folder or all of them. Right-click any photo to find similar ones. It all happens on your Mac.

Edit, convert, present

  • Quick edits: Auto Enhance plus light, contrast, warmth, colour and sharpen; crop and straighten; remove background; export as JPEG, PNG, HEIC, TIFF or AVIF, or under a chosen file size.
  • Batch convert and resize, with optional EXIF and location stripping.
  • Slideshows with Ken Burns drift, and a chrome-free Present mode for AirPlay, HDMI and Sidecar.
  • An info panel with full EXIF, an RGB histogram and a map; Live Text to select text in a photo.

Your photos never leave your Mac. Read the help pages and the three-sentence privacy policy.

Questions

Which formats does Lumen open?
JPEG, PNG, HEIC/HEIF, WebP, AVIF, JPEG XL, GIF (with playback and frame stepping), TIFF, BMP, PSD, EXR, and RAW formats including DNG, CR2, NEF, ARW and RAF. No plugins.
Is it free?
Every feature is free to try for 7 days: browsing, every format, search, editing and export, batch convert, slideshows, Present mode and Live Text. After that, Lumen Pro is $9.99 once, with no subscription.
Does Lumen import or move my photos?
No. There is no library to import into. Lumen shows your folders as they are, viewing is read-only, and edits are saved as copies next to the original unless you choose to replace a file.
How does search work, and is anything uploaded?
Describe the photo ("people on a beach", "red hat"), or type words visible in it, a city, or a date like "October 2024". Smart search runs on an on-device model, so your photos are read on your Mac and the index stays there. Nothing is uploaded.
Can it convert RAW files in bulk?
Yes. Batch convert and resize turns hundreds of RAWs into web-ready JPEGs in one pass, with optional EXIF and location stripping.
Which macOS does it need?
macOS 14 or later on a Mac with Apple silicon. Smart search downloads a 656 MB on-device model once; without it, search uses recognised subjects, text in photos, places, dates and names.