Guide

View photos and play videos

Last updated November 10, 2026

Look closely at a photo or video, check its details, and hand the original to the next app. Everything here works the same in a folder, in All Media, in a collection, and in search results.

Enlarge an item

1. Click a photo or video to select it, then press Space. You can also double-click it.
2. Use the ← and → arrow keys to move to the previous or next item while enlarged.
3. Press Space again or Esc to return to the gallery. The arrow beside the filename does the same.

To look closer, pinch on the trackpad or choose View > Zoom In. View > Zoom to Fit returns the whole image to the window. The enlarged view shows a preview first and loads the larger version when it’s available.

The Getting started guide shows the enlarged view.

Play a video

Enlarge a video the same way. It starts playing once it’s ready. Move the pointer over the video to show the controls: a Play and Pause button, the current time, a timeline you can drag, and the duration. The controls fade when the pointer is still.

Press , or . to step one frame back or forward; stepping pauses playback. Space plays and pauses, and Esc returns to the gallery. ← and → move to the neighboring items, including photos.

A video on a disconnected drive shows its poster frame only. Reconnect the drive to play it.

Read a file’s information

The Inspector shows details for the selected item. Open it in any of these ways:

• Click Inspector in the toolbar.
• Choose View > Show Inspector, or press ⌘I.

At the top you’ll see the filename, the date, and the dimensions, file size, and media type. Below that are the rating and color label, Tags, and any collections the item belongs to. Add field adds a title, caption, creator, copyright, or location, or a custom field of your own.

Further down, File, Image, and Camera hold what was recorded in the file. Keywords saved in the file by another app appear under More details; they are shown as they were imported and aren’t edited here.

Anything you change in the Inspector is saved to Grain Photo’s own catalog, and a brief Saved mark confirms it. The file and its XMP sidecar are not written. Your files and privacy explains where each kind of information lives.

Open or export the original

Control-click a photo or video in the gallery, or while it’s enlarged, to work with the original file.

• Show in Finder reveals the file in its folder.
• Open With lists the apps registered for that file type, with the default first, and opens the original in the one you choose.
• Export Original… copies the original file to a destination you pick. It’s the same bytes, not a rendered or converted version.
• The Copy submenu has File, which puts the file on the clipboard for pasting into another app, Preview, which copies the rendered image when you only need a quick reference, and Filename and Path, which copy text.

You can also drag an item, or a selection of items, straight into another app.

With several items selected, Control-click one of them for Show in Finder, Export Originals…, and Copy ▸ Files, Filenames or Paths for the whole selection.

Opening, revealing, exporting, or copying the original needs the file to be reachable. Reconnect its drive first, or allow Grain Photo to fetch the original from Dropbox. Copying a preview, filename or path works any time.