Licasa

Licasa is an image viewer and editor for the Linux desktop. It opens a photo from your file manager in an image-sized fullscreen window or in a floating mode.

Licasa is an independent open-source project and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Google.

Try Licasa

Download the latest published release · 0.5.0 release notes

• View photos fullscreen or in a floating window, then crop, adjust, and export them.
• Open JPEG, PNG, TIFF, WebP, HEIC/HEIF, JPEG XL, AVIF, JPEG 2000, and RAW previews.
• Play Motion Photos and animated APNG files.

If you try it, report a bug or suggest a feature.

Install

• AppImage (Licasa-0.5.0-x86_64.AppImage) and install-licasa-appimage.sh: for recent x86-64 Linux desktops. The package is built on Ubuntu 24.04, so older systems may not run it.
• Debian package (licasa_0.5.0-1_amd64.deb): for Ubuntu 24.04 on amd64. APT installs the required system libraries and QML modules.
• Snap beta: available through the Snap Store on systems with Snapd.

Download the AppImage and installer script into the same folder, then run:

bash install-licasa-appimage.sh ./Licasa-0.5.0-x86_64.AppImage

To install the Debian package:

sudo apt install ./licasa_0.5.0-1_amd64.deb

To install the Snap beta:

sudo snap install licasa --beta

In Settings, turn on Background process if you want faster repeat opens. Licasa then stays ready when you close its window and starts in the background at your next desktop login, including after a reboot. This is off by default. Turning it off removes the login startup entry; closing Licasa then exits it. This works through your desktop session, so it does not start before you log in.

If Licasa has trouble, its private error log is at $XDG_STATE_HOME/licasa/errors.log (normally ~/.local/state/licasa/errors.log; inside the Snap's user data for Snap installs). It records warnings and errors, keeps one rotated copy, and never uploads anything. Log messages can include photo paths, so review the file before attaching it to a bug report.

Build the Linux packages

From the repository root, with Docker installed:

docker build -f packaging/build-deb.Dockerfile -t licasa-deb-builder packaging
mkdir -p build/deb-output
docker run --rm -v "$PWD:/source:ro" -v "$PWD/build/deb-output:/output" \
  licasa-deb-builder bash /source/packaging/verify-fresh-build.sh

The .deb, AppImage, and SHA-256 files appear in build/deb-output/. Docker is required only to build these packages from source. To check the local files:

(cd build/deb-output && sha256sum -c licasa_0.5.0-1_amd64.deb.sha256)
(cd build/deb-output && sha256sum -c Licasa-0.5.0-x86_64.AppImage.sha256)
(cd build/deb-output && sha256sum -c install-licasa-appimage.sh.sha256)

Before releasing an AppImage, run its installation checks. They install and launch the actual file without FUSE on clean Ubuntu and Fedora, then test virtual X11 and Wayland displays on Arch.

Update

Download the newer package and its .sha256 file from Releases. To update a Debian installation, replace the version in these commands:

sha256sum -c licasa_0.5.0-1_amd64.deb.sha256
sudo apt install ./licasa_0.5.0-1_amd64.deb

To update an AppImage installation, close Licasa (AppImage), then download the new AppImage, install-licasa-appimage.sh, and both .sha256 files into the same folder. Replace the version in these commands:

sha256sum -c Licasa-0.5.0-x86_64.AppImage.sha256
sha256sum -c install-licasa-appimage.sh.sha256
bash install-licasa-appimage.sh ./Licasa-0.5.0-x86_64.AppImage

The installer replaces the existing per-user AppImage installation and refreshes its application-menu launcher.

Uninstall

sudo apt remove licasa

To remove an AppImage installation, delete ~/.local/opt/licasa-appimage, ~/.local/share/applications/licasa-appimage.desktop, and ~/.local/share/icons/hicolor/512x512/apps/licasa-appimage.png.

License

Licasa's first-party source is licensed under the BSD 2-Clause License. Third-party components and test fixtures have their own licenses, which are retained with the distributed materials.