Apple Preview review: A near-perfect PDF reader free on Mac, iPhone & iPad

When you buy an Apple product, you’re not only investing in its premium hardware and long lifespan, but also the slew of exclusive apps it bundles for free. The Apple Preview app is the default document and image viewer on macOS, iOS, and iPadOS, and its full potential often goes unnoticed. While Apple Preview may appear as a basic file viewer, it actually packs a ton of useful features—beyond just viewing photos and PDFs.

Find out how Apple Preview compares to the alternatives in our Best PDF Editor for Mac round-up.

Apple Preview: Mac features

Much like some other Apple apps (such as the iWork suite), launching Preview on macOS opens the Finder. Through it, you can browse through your folders to locate the file you would like to view. It’s a pretty straightforward approach.

Alternatively, you could just open a compatible file directly from Finder and avoid launching the Preview app altogether. Considering that it’s the default image and PDF viewer on macOS, supported files should automatically populate in it whenever you double-click on them.

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Whether you’re viewing an image or a PDF document, you will find a toolbar towards the screen’s top. It lets you view the file’s details, zoom in or out, share the file, fill an included form, or mark up the file.

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

Expectedly, the Markup tools are easily customizable, allowing you to control the color and size of a shape or text box. Similarly, you get to pick between multiple fonts when typing. There is an autofill helper too, read about that here: How to take advantage of Preview’s form-filling helper.

So, Apple Preview isn’t just a vanilla file viewer. It enables users to easily annotate images and documents, making it an excellent college companion. Perhaps the biggest drawback here is the lack of an advanced editor that can tweak the content’s fundamentals.

With the Preview app, you’re mostly limited to adding new elements on top of the existing ones. Consequently, you can’t edit the text of a PDF file. The software doesn’t offer a full-fledged photo editor, either (we have the best photo editors here).

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While Apple Preview isn’t designed to replace your image or PDF editor, it still offers some power-user features. So, for example, through the menubar’s Tools button, you can reveal some more advanced image controls, such as granular resizing, color adjustments, automatic background removal, and more. Meanwhile, the File menu includes a useful Export button that enables you to choose the output’s quality and file format. This allows you to convert the image to HEIC, JPEG, PDF, PNG, TIFF, and more.

Similarly, when viewing a PDF file in Apple Preview, you can easily reorder or delete its pages using the sidebar. Through this feature, those receiving large documents can easily get rid of irrelevant fluff and limit the file to the important bits they actually need. And if you choose to export the PDF using Preview, then you can optionally add a password, a Quartz filter, or file restrictions.

Find out more here: How to save a page from a PDF as a separate file, How to easily redact text in a PDF on your Mac. We also cover How to edit a PDF on Mac.

Annoyances on macOS

While my experience using Apple Preview on my Mac has been positive for the most part, there are certain annoyances that I hope the company would patch down the road.

For starters, I find the basic PDF editor too restrictive at times. Sure, I can insert shapes and text on top of the document. However, I can’t actually integrate these into it and move the PDF’s content to accommodate the new additions. Similarly, there’s seemingly no way to selectively remove content from a PDF, and I’m bound to delete entire pages.

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Otherwise, when viewing an image in Preview, you likely won’t find the Crop button in the Markup toolbar by default. To force it to surface, you have to locate the image in Finder, right-click on it, and hit the Markup button under the Quick Actions menu. This will launch a Preview instance with a toolbar that actually features a Crop button. Regularly opening an image in Finder simply won’t do it. It’s a basic feature that no basic user will ever find on their own.

Preview on iOS and iPadOS

iPhones and iPads have long offered similar viewing and annotation features for images and PDFs via the Files app. With iOS and iPadOS 26, Apple introduced a dedicated Preview app to streamline its platforms. Similar to the Mac, opening a compatible file using the Files app now loads it in Preview automatically. You could also use the Preview app itself to browse and open supported images and documents.

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Most of the Preview app’s tools are available on older iOS and iPadOS versions using the File app’s Quick Look feature. For PDFs, you’ve always been able to annotate documents, rearrange their pages, sign or autofill them, scan new ones, and more. Likewise, the Remove Background option for images isn’t new, and neither is the ability to insert text, shapes, and doodles.

A noteworthy introduction that was seemingly absent prior to the Preview app’s mobile debut is support for resizing images down to the pixel. You also get to tweak the pixel resolution via the same menu. However, while the Preview app lets you pick between half a dozen file formats when exporting an image or PDF, advanced Mac features like password protection, Quartz filters, and color adjustment curves still appear to be missing from the mobile client.

Should you use Apple Preview on Mac, iPad and iPhone?

As its name suggests, Apple Preview is designed for viewing certain file types on macOS, iOS, and iPadOS. As a viewer, it’s an excellent software that loads swiftly and offers a sleek user interface. While the editing functionality is limited, one could argue that the app isn’t an editor in the first place. So the basic editing features are only there to complement a file viewing app.

Since the Preview app is preinstalled on all of the latest Macs, iPhones, and iPads, I can’t find a reason why you may want to avoid it. It is right there, costs nothing, and works reliably—what’s not to like?

If you’re seeking a proper image or PDF editor, then Apple Preview isn’t the app to opt for. Beyond annotation, form-filling, signing, and the other similar features we’ve mentioned above, the app is designed to display images and documents. As a result, it doesn’t cater to those who need advanced editing software.

Find out how Apple Preview compares to Adobe Acrobat: Apple Preview vs Adobe Acrobat DC.

Just want to turn something into a PDF? Read: How to make a PDF on Mac