Glance

All-in-one Quick Look plugin

Glance provides Quick Look previews for files that macOS doesn't support out of the box.

Version 1.9.0 (build 27) · macOS 26 or later · Apple silicon

Installation Steps ·

Note

This repository is a fork of chamburr/glance with additional maintenance and distribution work. Compared with upstream, this fork includes:

• native macOS 26 Liquid Glass controls and adaptive window materials
• Apple silicon-only builds
• lazy folder previews with Finder-style icons, pagination, and progressive thumbnails
• in-place previews and multi-level navigation for nested folder items
• a sandbox-safe Open With chooser that preserves default app associations
• newer Quick Look and WebKit fixes
• .ini, .toml, .ttml, and .elrc source-code previews
• expanded archive support
• secure, offline EPUB 2 and EPUB 3 previews
• secure, interactive 3MF model previews
• safer bundled WebKit rendering
• a bounded Rust preview core with responsive off-main rendering and parsing
• pinned mise build and test tooling with expanded automated coverage
• downloadable unsigned DMGs from this fork's GitHub Releases
• Settings controls for Start at Login and preview appearance

Release DMGs are unsigned and unnotarized. Verify the attached SHA-256 checksum before using the quarantine-removal command shown in the installation steps.

About

Glance extends the native Quick Look experience in Finder, Spotlight, and the Space-bar preview window. This maintained fork builds on chamburr/glance and the original Glance plugin, modernizing the app for current macOS releases while retaining local, lightweight previews.

Version 1.9.0 (build 27) requires an Apple silicon Mac running macOS 26 or later. It uses native macOS materials and controls without stacking custom glass effects inside Quick Look's own window chrome.

Installation

This maintained fork is distributed through GitHub Releases. The upstream Homebrew cask installs a separate upstream build and does not track releases from this fork.

Release DMGs are currently unsigned and unnotarized. To install Glance:

1. Download both Glance-<version>.dmg and Glance-<version>.dmg.sha256 from the same release. In Terminal, change to their download directory and verify the disk image before opening it:

   shasum -a 256 -c Glance-<version>.dmg.sha256

2. Open the verified disk image and drag Glance.app to Applications.

3. If macOS blocks the app, remove the download quarantine attribute:

   xattr -rd com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Glance.app

4. Launch Glance once so macOS can register its Quick Look extension.

5. Keep Glance running while using its previews. Glance runs from the menu bar only, with no Dock icon or main window. Settings can start Glance at login, customize the font, size, and line wrapping used by new code, Markdown, and notebook previews, and manage update checking. Later Glance releases show an update window with the release notes and install inside the app without opening a browser; update integrity is enforced with EdDSA signatures via Sparkle. The macOS quarantine step above is a one-time hurdle for this first DMG install only — in-app updates are not quarantined.

Supported file types

• Lossless audio: .flac files with native playback controls and a bounded waveform overview

• Folders: lazy, expandable trees with Finder-style icons and progressive image, video, and PDF thumbnails. Glance loads one directory at a time in pages of 500 and skips hidden items. Double-click a folder to navigate into it with multi-level Back navigation, or double-click a file or package to preview it in place. The utility bar can open a selected nested item once with any compatible app without changing its macOS default.

• Source code and text (with two-face/syntect syntax highlighting): .cpp, .elrc, .ini, .js, .jsonl, .py, .swift, .tmpl, .toml, .ts, .ttml, .yml, common extensionless configuration files, and many more

  

• Markdown (rendered using Comrak, with offline Mermaid diagrams rendered by Pele): .md, .markdown, .mdown, .mkdn, .mkd, .Rmd, .qmd

  

• Draw.io diagrams (rendered locally with the bundled diagrams.net viewer): uncompressed .drawio

• Archive: .7z, .ear, .jar, .rar, .tar, .tar.gz, .tgz, .war, .zip. Double-click a file entry to preview it in place without extracting the whole archive; Back returns to the tree. Extracted entries are temporary, capped at 25 MB, and deleted when you leave the preview. Nested archives can be opened up to three levels deep.

  

• E-books (rendered offline by Glance's bounded Rust preview core): DRM-free .epub files, including package metadata, reading order, internal links, and embedded images

• 3D models (parsed by Glance's bounded Rust preview core): .3mf, with rotation, pan, zoom, transforms, units, multipart assemblies, and basic colors

• Jupyter Notebook (rendered by Glance's Rust preview core): .ipynb

  

• Tab-separated values (parsed by Glance's bounded Rust preview core): .tab, .tsv

  

• Spreadsheets (values-only, parsed by Glance's bounded Rust preview core): .xlsx. Every worksheet is available from a sheet picker, with dates, booleans, cached formula values, and column letters. Cell styles, charts, images, conditional formatting, .xls, and .numbers are not supported.

• SQLite databases (read-only, parsed by Glance's bounded Rust preview core): .sqlite, .sqlite3, .db. Tables are listed alphabetically and shown 50 rows at a time with declared column types, distinct NULL and empty values, and BLOB sizes instead of inline bytes. Virtual generated columns are omitted; stored generated columns render normally. Rows above the per-value safety limit are reported in place while the table list stays usable. Glance never writes to the user's file: it opens immutable when no -wal sidecar exists and otherwise reads a temporary copy. Encrypted, truncated, or non-SQLite files show a clear message.

• Structured data (parsed by Glance's bounded Rust preview core): .json, .plist (XML and binary), and .xml. Objects, arrays, and elements are collapsible; strings, numbers, booleans, nulls, dates, and data are labelled by type; keys keep their authored order. Malformed input falls back to syntax-highlighted text. Files above 4 MB, deeply nested documents, and very large trees show an explicit truncation notice instead of failing.

Images

Two sets, two jobs. The App Store submission set is canonical for the store listing; the docs set illustrates this README. Neither set is committed by CI — only deliberate human captures land here.

• Submission (canonical): AppStore/Listing/Screenshots/Screenshot1.jpg (file-type collage), Screenshot2.jpg (Quick Look, Finder and Spotlight), Screenshot3.jpg (light and dark mode).
• Docs: AppStore/Assets/Screenshots/ per file type (SourceCode, Markdown, Archive, JupyterNotebook, TSV), embedded in the Supported file types section above.
• AppStore/Assets/DownloadBadge.svg: the releases badge wired in the hero above, linking to this fork's GitHub Releases.

FAQ

There are existing Quick Look apps for some of the supported file types. Why create another one?

• Glance combines the features of many plugins into one and provides consistent and beautiful previews.
• Glance follows light and dark appearance, window activation, Reduce Transparency, and Increase Contrast.
• Some plugins still use the deprecated Quick Look Generator API and might stop working in the future.
• Glance can easily be extended to support other file types.

Why isn't the app available on older macOS versions or Intel Macs?

The app uses the macOS 26 AppKit design system and intentionally ships Apple silicon-only builds.

Why must Glance remain running?

The containing app provides the sandbox-safe Open With bridge and keeps the extension available. Glance runs from the menu bar only; it has no Dock icon or main window.

Why are images in my Markdown files not loading?

Glance blocks remote assets. Furthermore, the app only has access to the file that's being previewed. Local image files referenced from Markdown are therefore not loaded.

Does Open With change my default application?

No. Glance opens the selected file once with the chosen compatible app. It does not modify Launch Services or the file type's default application association.

Why isn't [file type] supported?

Feel free to open an issue or contribute! When opening an issue, please describe what kind of preview you'd expect for your file.

.ts files preview as TypeScript source (macOS also uses this extension for MPEG-2 video).

How do I disable Glance for a file type?

Glance doesn't currently support disabling individual file types.

You claim to support [file type], but previews aren't showing up.

Glance skips non-archive files larger than 10 MB to avoid slowing down your Mac; spreadsheets get the Rust core’s 25 MB limit. Structured data files are exempt from that preflight: Glance reads at most 4 MB and shows a truncation notice when the file is larger. Archive entries larger than 25 MB are not extracted. Folder previews load off-main one directory at a time in pages of 500 so large descendants cannot hide their siblings or block the initial preview.

It's possible that your file's extension or UTI isn't associated with Glance. You can easily verify this:

1. Check whether the file extension is matched to the correct class in PreviewVCFactory.swift.
2. Find your file's UTI by running mdls -name kMDItemContentType /path/to/your/file. Check whether the UTI is listed under QLSupportedContentTypes in Info.plist.
3. If an association is missing, please feel free to add it and submit a PR.

Contributing

Suggestions and contributions are always welcome! Please discuss larger changes (e.g. adding support for a new file type) in a fork issue before submitting a pull request.

Building requires Xcode 26 on an Apple silicon Mac running macOS 26, plus mise-en-place. From the repository root, run mise install once to install the pinned Rust, SwiftFormat, and SwiftLint versions. Cargo builds share compiler outputs through Mr Boxington automatically. Common local commands are:

• mise run hooks to install the hk pre-commit checks for this checkout
• mise run test to run the Rust and Xcode test suites
• mise run build to build the app in the build directory
• mise run verify to run tests and a release build
• mise run all to build, install into /Applications, register the Quick Look extension, and reset Quick Look

To add previews for a new file extension, please follow these steps:

1. Create a new class in QLPlugin/Views/Previews that implements the Preview protocol.
2. Add its match rule to SupportedPreviewRegistry.swift and map its preview type in PreviewVCFactory.swift.
3. Find the file's UTI with mdls -name kMDItemContentType /path/to/your/file, then add it to QLSupportedContentTypes in QLPlugin/Info.plist.
4. Update this README, SupportedFilesWC.swift, the App Store description, and Credits.rtf if a new library was introduced.

License

This project is licensed under MIT License.