Apple Preview review: almost the ideal PDF companion on macOS

When you buy a Mac, you’re investing not only in its high-end hardware and long lifespan, but also in the multitude of exclusive applications it bundles for free. The Apple Preview app is the default document and image viewer on macOS, and its full potential often goes unnoticed. Although Apple Preview may appear as a basic file viewer, it actually has a ton of useful features beyond just viewing photos and PDFs.

First impressions

Much like some other Apple apps (such as the iWork suite), launching Preview opens the Finder. With it, you can browse your folders to locate the file you want to view. It’s a pretty simple approach.

Alternatively, you can simply open a compatible file directly from Finder and avoid launching the Preview app altogether. Since this is the default image and PDF viewer on macOS, supported files should automatically populate there every time you double-click them.

Regardless of how you choose to import your files, Apple Preview will greet you with a toolbar once your content has loaded.

Apple Preview Features

Although Apple Preview’s interface is generally consistent, some dynamic UI elements will change depending on the file type you have loaded.

Whether you’re viewing an image or a PDF document, you’ll find a toolbar at the top of the screen. With it, you can view file details, zoom in or out, share the file, fill out an included form, or annotate the file.

Clicking the Annotation button reveals another toolbar with a wide range of relevant features. These include tools for selecting, doodling, inserting shapes or sticky notes, signing, and entering text.

As expected, the markup tools are easily customizable, allowing you to control the color and size of a shape or text box. Likewise, you can choose between multiple fonts while typing. There is also an autofill wizard, read about it here: How to Take Advantage of Preview’s Form Fill Wizard.

So, Apple Preview is not just a vanilla file viewer. It allows users to easily annotate images and documents, making it a great academic companion. Perhaps the biggest drawback here is the lack of an advanced editor capable of editing the fundamentals of the content.

With the Preview app, you are mainly limited to adding new items on top of existing ones. Therefore, you cannot edit the text in a PDF file (see our roundup of the best PDF editors). The software also doesn’t offer a full-fledged photo editor (we have the best photo editors here).

Although Apple Preview is not designed to replace your image or PDF editor, it does offer some features aimed at power users. So, for example, through the Tools button in the menu bar, you can display more advanced image controls, such as granular resizing, color adjustments, automatic background removal, etc. Meanwhile, the File menu includes a useful Export button that lets you choose the output file quality and format. This allows you to convert the image to HEIC, JPEG, PDF, PNG, TIFF, etc.

Likewise, when viewing a PDF file in Apple Preview, you can easily rearrange or delete its pages using the sidebar. With this feature, those who receive large documents can easily get rid of unnecessary items and limit the file to the important items they actually need. And if you choose to export the PDF using preview, you can optionally add a password, quartz filter, or file restrictions.

To learn more, click here: How to save a page of a PDF as a separate file, How to easily write text in a PDF on your Mac. We also explain how to edit a PDF on Mac.

The disadvantages of preview

While my experience with Apple Preview has been mostly positive, there are some annoyances that I hope the company fixes in the future.

For starters, the Preview app is exclusive to macOS. Although Apple offers some of its features through the Files app on iOS and iPadOS, most of the advanced features are missing. These include PDF passwords and restrictions, granular resizing and color adjustments of images, and much more.

Since the M4 iPad Pro packs a processor that hasn’t even debuted on the Mac yet, there’s nothing stopping Apple from bringing the Preview app to iPadOS. The A17 Pro chip in the iPhone 15 Pro should also be able to handle these tasks just fine.

Beyond its limited availability, I find the basic PDF editor sometimes too restrictive. Of course, I can insert shapes and text at the top of the document. However, I can’t actually embed them and move the content of the PDF to accommodate the new additions. Likewise, there apparently is no way to selectively delete the contents of a PDF, and I am forced to delete entire pages.

Finally, when viewing an image in Preview, you probably won’t find the Crop button in the Annotation toolbar by default. To force it to surface, you need to locate the image in Finder, right-click it and press the Annotation button under the Quick Actions menu. This will launch a preview instance with a toolbar that actually has a Crop button. Regularly opening an image in Finder just won’t do it. This is a basic feature that no basic user will ever find on their own.

The essential

As the name suggests, Apple Preview is designed to display certain file types on macOS. As a viewer, it’s great software that loads quickly and offers a sleek user interface. Although the editing functionality is limited, one could argue that the app is not an editor in the first place. So the basic editing features are only there to complement a file viewing application.

Since the Preview app comes preinstalled on all the latest Macs (with no easy way to remove it), I can’t think of a reason why you’d want to avoid it. It’s there, costs nothing and works reliably. What’s not to like?

If you are looking for a suitable image or PDF editor, Apple Preview is not the app to go for. Beyond annotating, form filling, signing, and other similar features mentioned above, the app is designed to display images and documents. As a result, it is not aimed at those who need advanced editing software.

Learn how Apple Preview compares to Adobe Acrobat: Apple Preview vs Adobe Acrobat DC.