Live window thumbnails
Real captures through hyprland-toplevel-export-v1, not static icons or placeholder rectangles.
Hyprland 0.55+ · wlr-layer-shell · live thumbnails
Every workspace.
Every workspace.
One keystroke.
hyprview turns your desktop into a visual map: live window thumbnails, type-to-filter, app icons, and keyboard-first navigation.
- No compositor plugin
- No process spawning
- TOML config with hot reload
Features
Your whole desktop, at a glance.
Find, focus, and move windows without breaking your flow.
Keyboard-first
Arrow keys or hjkl, number jumps, and Tab cycling across every workspace, starting from the focused window.
Type to filter
Filter by workspace name, app class, or window title. Non-matching windows dim while the match stays in focus.
Move windows fast
Press m to send the active window to the selected workspace, then follow it there if you want.
App icons and tooltips
Icons resolve from your icon theme and .desktop files. Hover a window for its app name, class, and title.
Config that stays out of the way
Sensible defaults, a TOML file only when you need it, and live reload on save or SIGHUP.
How it works
One daemon. One overlay. Zero plugins.
Start the daemon
hyprview takes a single-instance lock and waits quietly in ppoll, using almost no CPU while hidden.
Toggle the overlay
On SIGUSR1 it creates a fullscreen wlr-layer-shell surface and asks Hyprland for its workspaces and windows.
See live thumbnails
Cards appear immediately, then thumbnails stream in one at a time without blocking input or the event loop.
Install
Download it, build it, bind it.
Every GitHub release ships a prebuilt x86_64 binary, a checksum, and a stable source tarball. AUR publishing is paused while Arch restricts accounts and pushes.
Prebuilt binary
Requires the Wayland, Cairo, and Pango runtime libraries.
curl -LO https://github.com/nnthnn/hyprview/releases/latest/download/hyprview-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz
curl -LO https://github.com/nnthnn/hyprview/releases/latest/download/hyprview-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz.sha256
sha256sum -c hyprview-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz.sha256
tar xzf hyprview-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz
sudo install -Dm755 hyprview/hyprview /usr/local/bin/hyprviewFrom source
You need a Rust toolchain, pkg-config, and the Wayland, Cairo, and Pango development headers.
git clone https://github.com/nnthnn/hyprview.git
cd hyprview
cargo build --release
sudo install -Dm755 target/release/hyprview \
/usr/local/bin/hyprview
Cargo users can install with cargo install --git https://github.com/nnthnn/hyprview --locked.
Debian/Ubuntu build dependencies: cargo pkg-config libwayland-dev libpango1.0-dev.
Arch: base-devel rust wayland pango.
Arch users can build the tracked hyprview-git PKGBUILD locally from packaging/aur/hyprview-git with makepkg -si.
Also works on Sway in fallback mode: workspace data over i3 IPC, with coloured placeholders instead of live thumbnails.
Configure
Make it yours.
hyprview reads $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/hyprview/config.toml and falls back to ~/.config/hyprview/config.toml. Every key is optional, and the file is watched for changes.
See the full configuration reference for colors, fonts, layout, keybindings, and behavior.
Hyprland 0.55+ · hyprland.lua
hl.on("hyprland.start", function()
hl.exec_cmd("hyprview")
end)
hl.bind("SUPER + Tab", hl.dsp.exec_cmd("hyprview --toggle"))~/.config/hyprview/config.toml
[appearance]
show_app_icons = true
icon_size = 20.0
[behavior]
allow_mouse = false
switch_on_move = true
[keybindings]
move_window = "m"
tab = "Tab"Controls
The keyboard is the interface.
Mouse support is opt-in with --allow-mouse or behavior.allow_mouse.
←↑↓→Navigate the grid
hjklNavigate with vim keys
TabShiftTabCycle window highlight
EnterFocus or switch
1–9Jump to a workspace card
TypeFilter the desktop
mMove the active window
DeleteClose the hovered window
EscClear, then close
Ready to see your workspaces?
Build hyprview, bind one key, and stop hunting for windows.