GLTFQuickLook

Finder thumbnails and interactive Quick Look previews for .gltf and .glb files on modern macOS.

Modern Extension

The modern application is the recommended version for macOS 12 and later. The current downloadable build targets Apple Silicon. It embeds both a Quick Look preview extension and a Finder thumbnail extension.

Highlights:

• Interactive SceneKit previews with a native transparent Quick Look background.
• Finder thumbnails for binary GLB and sidecar-based glTF documents.
• Automatic preparation of downloaded and user-selected glTF folders.
• Support for dense Sketchfab exports and large uModel documents.
• Optional Unreal material reconstruction from sibling .props.txt and texture files.
• Oversized animated exports retain their first 10 animation clips in the prepared cache.
• Source models are never rewritten; compatibility data is stored in extended attributes.

Install

The beta download is ad hoc signed rather than Apple-notarized. macOS may show a warning because the build does not come from the App Store or an identified developer.

1. Download GLTFQuickLook-1.1.0-beta.1-macos-arm64.zip from this repository's Releases page.

2. Move GLTFQuickLook.app to /Applications.

3. Open the app. If macOS blocks it, open System Settings > Privacy & Security, click Open Anyway, then confirm.

4. If Quick Look still refuses to load the extensions, run:

   xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/GLTFQuickLook.app
   open /Applications/GLTFQuickLook.app

5. Keep the GLTFQL menu-bar app running. ~/Downloads is monitored automatically; use Ajouter des dossiers... in the menu for other model libraries.

Select a .gltf or .glb file in Finder and press Space. Thumbnail preparation can take a little while when a folder contains many large models.

Privacy and Storage

GLTFQuickLook works locally and does not upload models or usage data. The host app monitors ~/Downloads plus folders explicitly selected by the user. For sidecar glTF documents, it stores a self-contained prepared copy as an extended attribute on the source .gltf; the original file and its animation set remain unchanged.

Extended attributes work well on APFS and most local macOS volumes, but some network, cloud, archive, or non-Mac filesystems can remove them or impose a size limit. In that case the original model can still be opened by other software, but the prepared Quick Look cache may need to be regenerated.

Troubleshooting

If previews disappear after a macOS update or after replacing the app:

open /Applications/GLTFQuickLook.app
qlmanage -r
killall Finder

Then use Reanalyser les dossiers from the GLTFQL menu. Avoid installing two copies of the app at the same time because macOS may register the wrong extension bundle.

Build

The modern project requires Xcode, Swift Package Manager, and XcodeGen. GLTFSceneKit is pinned to the revision validated for this release.

brew install xcodegen
xcodegen generate --spec ModernAppExtension/project.yml
xcodebuild \
  -project ModernAppExtension/GLTFQuickLook.xcodeproj \
  -scheme GLTFQuickLook \
  -configuration Release \
  build

Run Scripts/package-release.sh to produce the same ad hoc signed Apple Silicon ZIP and SHA-256 checksum used by the GitHub release workflow.

Legacy Plugin

The original .qlgenerator implementation remains in this repository for older macOS versions. Apple no longer supports that extension mechanism on current macOS releases. See the original project for its historical installation instructions.

Credits

GLTFQuickLook was created by magicien. The modern App Extension and current compatibility work are maintained by Hector.

Released under the MIT License.