Neovim 101 — Image Viewer

The different ways to view images within Neovim.

Neovim 101 — Image Viewer

This article is part of the Neovim 101 series.

The Neovim configuration files are available in this repository.

Getting Started

As Neovim users, we want to do everything within Neovim, including viewing images. In this article, let’s explore the different options we have.

telescope-media-files.nvim

telescope-media-files.nvim is a Telescope extension to preview images, pdf, epub, videos, and fonts from Neovim using Telescope.

This plugin works well in Linux using ueberzug. It requires installing other utilities to preview pdf, epubs, videos, and fonts.

telescope-media-files.nvim

• For macOS, check out this thread.
• For Windows users, we can use Neovim with WSL

Check out this related article!

Vim/Neovim Plugins for A Better Integrated Experience

Terminal File Manager

We can also integrate a terminal file manager into Neovim to preview images.

For demonstration purposes, we will use ranger as an example.

Check out this article for other available terminal file managers!

Command Line Tools for Faster File System Navigation

In the init.lua file, we will install the rnvimr plugin. This plugin allows us to use ranger in a floating window.

ranger supports w3mimgdisplay, ueberzug, mpv, iTerm2, kitty, terminology or urxvt for image previews.