Galileo
Galileo
Galileo is a fast, local-first file manager and photo viewer for Windows 11.
No account. No cloud sync. Your library stays on your disk — with a tabbed explorer, a buttery photo viewer, collage & slideshow, an embedded video player, a private Hidden album, and an encrypted vault.
The reasons Galileo started — real privacy, a great full-screen show, and a vault that actually encrypts.
Move a folder into an encrypted vault that's hidden from Windows — files become opaque AES-256-GCM blobs with random names, unlocked by a strong passphrase (Argon2id, with a live strength meter) or Windows Hello. Vaults stay out of the sidebar until one is unlocked; while unlocked, every Galileo feature works on them. They re-lock on idle, on exit, or on demand — and can optionally self-wipe after too many wrong passphrases. Send to Vault encrypts new files on the spot and wipes the originals, and optional Google Drive backup uploads only the encrypted, obfuscated files (the key never leaves your device).
One click (or H) drops a solid black curtain over the current photo — a glance over your shoulder reveals nothing. Or move photos to a persistent Hidden album, optionally gated behind Windows Hello. Originals are never modified; hidden state lives only in app data.
Launch from the toolbar or F5. Adjustable per-slide timing (2–30s), shuffle, loop, and transitions including Ken Burns pan & zoom. Auto-hiding controls, captions, and hidden photos are always skipped.
Built to replace both Windows Explorer and the Photos app — without the clutter or the cloud.
Win11-style folder tabs, each with its own back/forward history. Sidebar for Quick access & drives.
Filter the current folder by name, or flip on recursive search to sweep every subfolder.
Sort/group by name, date, type, or size — or click a Details column header. Choices persist.
Move-aware paste, plus drag files between folders (Shift to move) or out to any app.
Fit-to-window, cursor-anchored wheel zoom, drag-pan, rotate with auto-refit, and a metadata panel.
Embedded playback for video (MP4/MOV/MKV/WEBM…) and audio (MP3/WAV/FLAC/M4A/OGG…) with album art, mute/repeat, and full 5.1/7.1/Atmos multichannel output.
Browse .zip files in place like folders, open files inside, and Extract Here / Extract All.
Dock a real cmd / PowerShell / WSL terminal (ConPTY + xterm.js) right beside the explorer, in the current folder.
Auto-arranged Justified, Grid, or Hero layouts that fill the screen. Shuffle, resize, export to PNG.
System, Light, Dark, Terminal (green), and Gray — applied live, no restart.
Mount or remove a drive and it appears (or disappears) in the sidebar automatically.
Make a folder appear empty in-app — reversible and disk-safe — optionally behind Windows Hello.
Registers as a Windows file handler so you can set Galileo as your default image viewer.
GPU-composited viewer, virtualized thumbnails, and throttled decoding for smooth fast-scrolling.
| ← / → | Previous / next image |
| Mouse wheel | Zoom toward the cursor |
| + / − / 0 | Zoom in / out / fit |
| R | Rotate 90° (auto-fit) |
| H | Black out / reveal (eye toggle) |
| F / F11 | Full screen |
| F5 | Refresh (explorer) · slideshow (viewer) |
| Backspace | Back |
| Del / Shift+Del | Recycle / permanent delete |
| Esc | Exit slideshow / full screen / back |
Local-first by design: no telemetry, no account, no network calls. Hidden & favorite state and all settings live in a single JSON file under %LocalAppData%. Original files are never modified.
Galileo is an unpackaged, self-contained WinUI 3 desktop app. Clone, build, run.
Windows 11 and the .NET 8 SDK (winget install Microsoft.DotNet.SDK.8).
Compile the WinUI 3 project — produces Galileo.exe.
Launch it, or set it as your default image viewer via the included scripts.
# clone, then from the repo root: dotnet build src/Galileo.App dotnet run --project src/Galileo.App # optional: install + register as the default photo app (per-user, no admin) ./tools/install.ps1