The missing tool for digital artists. Get native File Explorer thumbnails, inspect layers, and export your iPad artwork to PNG, JPEG, TIFF — no subscription, no cloud, works offline.
Millions of artists use Procreate on iPad. But the moment you transfer those .procreate project files to a Windows PC, they become mysterious blank icons. You can't tell which painting is which without sending them back to an iPad.
Your artwork files are invisible. Windows has no idea how to read them.
Full visibility. Your artwork looks just as at home as your JPEGs and PNGs.
Drag the slider to compare your Windows File Explorer experience with and without ProcreateViewer installed. Your .procreate files go from blank icons to rich visual thumbnails.
Drag the slider to compare
A complete toolkit for viewing, inspecting, and converting Procreate artwork — all in one lightweight, offline application.
See beautiful preview images for every .procreate file right inside Windows File Explorer — the same way you see JPEG or PNG thumbnails. Instantly identify your artwork at a glance.
A dedicated desktop application with a dark theme UI inspired by Procreate itself. Open any .procreate file to see the full artwork with smooth zoom and pan controls.
View the full layer stack of every painting. See layer names, opacity, visibility, and all 24 Procreate blend modes. Toggle individual layers on or off and re-composite the image.
Export your artwork to industry-standard formats. Get transparent PNGs for the web, high-quality JPEGs for sharing, TIFFs for professional printing, or BMPs for legacy workflows.
Need to convert your entire Procreate archive? Point the batch tool at a folder and convert every .procreate file to your chosen format in one click. Great for portfolio backups.
See every technical detail embedded in your artwork: canvas dimensions in pixels, DPI/resolution, color profile, orientation, total file size, and whether timelapse recording was enabled.
Take a closer look at ProcreateViewer's interface — from the full artwork viewer to the layer panel, metadata display, and batch export tools.
We ported part of our Python parser to JavaScript. Drop a .procreate file into the panel and see its thumbnail instantly — everything happens in your browser. Nothing is uploaded.
or click to browse
ProcreateViewer ships two components: a Windows Shell Extension (C#/.NET) that provides thumbnails, and a Python-based standalone viewer with a full layer compositing engine. Both are open source.
A .procreate file is a ZIP archive. Inside you'll find:
| Path in ZIP | Content |
|---|---|
QuickLook/Thumbnail.png | Artwork preview image |
Document.archive | NSKeyedArchiver binary plist |
[UUID]/col~row.chunk | Layer tile data (LZ4 / LZO) |
video/segments/ | Timelapse recording data |
A .NET Framework 4 DLL registered via RegAsm. Implements Windows COM interfaces for Explorer thumbnails.
| Component | Purpose |
|---|---|
IThumbnailProvider | Returns HBITMAP to Explorer |
IInitializeWithStream | Receives file stream from shell |
| Manual ZIP parser | Zero dependencies — reads ZIP headers directly |
| RegAsm registration | Standard COM registration flow |
Python + tkinter GUI packaged with PyInstaller into a single .exe. Core parsing example:
Stack: Python 3.8+, Pillow, tkinter, PyInstaller, lz4
Full tile-based renderer that decompresses layer chunks and composites them into a final image.
| Feature | Detail |
|---|---|
| Tile decompression | LZ4, LZO, zlib, Apple bv41 |
| Pixel format | BGRA → RGBA conversion |
| Alpha compositing | Pillow alpha_composite |
| Opacity | Per-layer opacity scaling |
Choose the method that suits you. All options give you the full application, thumbnail handler, and file association — completely free.
Download and run the professional Setup wizard. It installs the viewer, registers thumbnails, and sets up file associations — all automatically.
Download SetupPrefer a script? Clone the repo (or download the ZIP), then right-click INSTALL.bat and run as administrator. That's it.
Clone RepositoryFor developers. Clone the repository, install Python 3.8+, and run build.bat to compile everything from scratch.
git clone the repositorybuild.batdist/ folderAfter installing, restart Windows Explorer. Open a command prompt and run taskkill /f /im explorer.exe then start explorer.exe. Make sure folder view is set to Large Icons or larger. If it still doesn't work, re-run INSTALL.bat as administrator.
Yes. The project is 100% open source (MIT License). Every line of code is auditable on GitHub. The application runs completely offline — zero telemetry, zero network calls, zero data collection of any kind.
ProcreateViewer is a viewer and exporter — not an editor. You can inspect every layer, toggle visibility, and export the result, but actual drawing and layer editing still requires Procreate on an iPad.
If you used the Setup installer: open Settings → Apps → search "ProcreateViewer" → Uninstall. If you used the script: right-click UNINSTALL.bat → Run as administrator. Both methods fully clean up all registry entries.
ProcreateViewer supports artwork from Procreate 4.x and 5.x (the ZIP + binary plist format). Files from Procreate Dreams or other Savage Interactive apps may not be compatible.
Windows 10 or Windows 11 (x64). The exe is ~25 MB and fully standalone — no Python, no .NET SDK needed. Thumbnails require .NET Framework 4 which is pre-installed on every Windows 10/11 machine.
The thumbnail comes directly from Procreate's own generated preview (stored at QuickLook/Thumbnail.png inside the archive). The viewer's compositing engine also supports reading raw layer tiles for per-layer rendering.
Absolutely! The project is on GitHub. Open issues for bugs or feature requests, submit pull requests, or just star the repo to show support.
Download ProcreateViewer — it's free, open source, and runs completely offline. No account required.