A minimal media viewer that lives in your tray. Press a hot-key (settings) in any Windows Explorer / Finder window and VU pops open, pre-scanned to that folder. Click tiles to select, compare two side-by-side, heart favorites, export your selects as a folder or zip.
- Folder grid (images + videos) with lazy thumbnails cached in
.thumbs/ - Single / multi-select: click · ctrl+click · shift+click range
- Side-by-side compare of any two items (keyboard:
C) - Heart to favorite, filter by hearted, export selected to a new folder or zip
- Drag any tile to your desktop to save a copy (filename preserved)
- Lives in the system tray; window closes to tray, not quits
- Global / custom hotkey
Ctrl+Shift+V— opens VU in the focused Explorer / Finder folder
pip install -r requirements.txt
python main.py
Requires ffmpeg on PATH for video thumbnails.
Double-click build.bat or run it from a terminal. Output: dist/VU.exe.
chmod +x build.sh
./build.sh
Output: dist/VU.app. The build script downloads a static ffmpeg into the
bundle automatically — you don't need to install it system-wide.
The global Ctrl+Shift+V hotkey is registered through the Carbon Event Manager,
so it works out of the box — no Accessibility or Input Monitoring permission
needed.
Cross-compilation is not supported — build Windows exes on Windows, Mac apps on Mac.
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
click |
Select only this tile |
ctrl+click |
Toggle tile in/out of selection |
shift+click |
Range-select from anchor to this tile |
double-click |
Open tile in full view |
C |
Compare (requires exactly 2 selected) |
H |
Heart/unheart selected |
Delete / Backspace |
Remove selected from viewer (file stays on disk) |
F |
Toggle heart filter |
Esc |
Clear selection / close overlays |
← / → |
Prev / next in full view |
VU stores everything centrally so your folders stay clean:
- Windows:
%APPDATA%\VU\ - macOS:
~/Library/Application Support/VU/
Inside that directory:
hearts/<folder-hash>.json— hearted files for each folder you've scannedthumbs/<folder-hash>/— cached thumbnails (safe to delete to regenerate)
"Removed from viewer" items are session-only — a fresh scan brings them back.