Alternatives to Lyn
A lightweight macOS image browser and viewer with non-destructive editing, geotagging and sharing. The listings below can replace it for an important use case. Each note says what changes if you switch.
The original
Lyn
A lightweight macOS image browser and viewer with non-destructive editing, geotagging and sharing.
Replacements
Listings that take over the same core job as Lyn.
Preview
Apple's built-in macOS app for viewing, annotating, merging and signing PDFs and images.
Preview is already installed on every Mac and free, handling images and PDFs with annotation and signing, but it lacks Lyn's curves, levels and geotagging.
XnView MP
Views, converts and organises images in more than five hundred formats, free for personal use.
XnView MP reads over five hundred formats on Windows, macOS and Linux with browsing, tagging and batch conversion, free for personal use but heavier to start.
nomacs
A fast image viewer that opens RAW and PSD files and can show the same picture in two synchronised windows.
nomacs is free and open source across Windows, macOS and Linux, opening RAW and PSD files with a metadata panel, though its adjustments are minimal.
ImageGlass
A fast image viewer that opens the formats Windows still argues about: WebP, JXL, HEIC, AVIF, SVG, HDR and raw.
ImageGlass is an open-source viewer opening over ninety formats including HDR and raw, with crop and resize tools, though its macOS build is newer than the Windows one.
Adobe Bridge
Adobe's free creative asset manager for previewing, tagging, organizing and publishing photos and media.
Adobe Bridge is free and adds metadata editing, keywords, ratings and bulk workflows on Windows and macOS, but it installs through Creative Cloud with an Adobe account.
Oculante
A fast, simple cross-platform image viewer with basic editing tools and wide format support.
Oculante is a free, open-source Rust viewer for Windows, macOS and Linux with wide format support and basic editing, though the project is in maintenance mode.
Also worth comparing
These listings name Lyn as their own alternative, so the relationship runs both ways.
FastStone Image Viewer
A fast Windows image browser, converter and editor covering every common format including HEIC, WebP and camera raw.
Lyn is a macOS image browser with non-destructive curves and levels editing and geotagging, but it is Mac only and paid after a 15-day trial.
PhotoQt
An image viewer with an uncluttered interface and more than 140 supported formats, plus photo spheres, live photos and map views.
Lyn is a paid macOS image browser with non-destructive curves and levels editing and geotagging, so it suits Mac users rather than Linux.
PicView
Fast keyboard-driven image viewer for Windows and macOS.
Lyn is a macOS-only image browser with non-destructive curves and levels editing and geotagging, and it is paid after a 15-day trial.
qView
A minimal image viewer that opens instantly and gets out of the way, with no interface beyond the picture.
Lyn is a macOS-only image browser with non-destructive editing and geotagging, and it is paid after a 15-day trial.
Similar software
Related functionality, not a direct replacement.
Acorn
A one-time-purchase image editor for macOS covering photo editing, painting, text and graphics.
Pixelmator Pro
Apple's image editor for Mac and iPad with nondestructive layers, vector tools and AI features.
Photo Mechanic
A fast photo browser for ingesting, culling, captioning and exporting large batches of images.
ExifTool
Reads, writes and edits metadata in almost every image, audio and video format there is, and is the reference tool for the job.
