Glance

All-in-one Quick Look plugin

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

Version 1.6.0 (build 20) · 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
• recursive folder previews with Finder-style icons and progressive thumbnails
• in-place previews 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
• 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 hiding the Dock icon

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 1.6.0 (build 20) 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. You can hide its Dock icon in Settings; Glance remains available from the menu bar.

Supported file types

• Folders: recursive, expandable trees with Finder-style icons and progressive image, video, and PDF thumbnails. Folder traversal skips hidden items and is bounded to 500 items and five levels. Double-click a file or package to preview it in place; Space does the same when the Quick Look host forwards that key. The utility bar can open the top-level file or 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, .json, .py, .swift, .toml, .ttml, .yml, common extensionless configuration files, and many more

  

• Markdown (rendered using Comrak): .md, .markdown, .mdown, .mkdn, .mkd, .Rmd, .qmd

  

• Archive: .7z, .ear, .jar, .tar, .tar.gz, .tgz, .war, .zip

  

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

  

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

  

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 can stay unobtrusive in the menu bar with its Dock icon hidden.

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.

Please note that macOS doesn't allow the handling of some file types (e.g. .plist, .ts and .xml).

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. Folder previews are separately bounded to 500 items and five levels.

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. Common local commands are:

• 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.