Play all images in a folder as a slide show?

[Alex Ethridge]

I do not want to "create" a slide show of images that I might select and I don't want to create shows that I save to play again or distribute.

More years ago than I can remember I must have had a program on my computer that I don't today and I don't remember what that program was.

I could right-click on a folder containing photos and videos and a pop-out menu would appear. One of the options was "slide show". If I selected "slide show", the program (or Windows, I don't know which) would begin to show all the photos and videos in that folder one at a time. I could select how long each image displayed. I could tell it to do random order rather than consecutive. I could set a display time per photo. And I could select to use photos from subfolders as well if I wanted.

So, what suggestions does anyone have for a free or low-cost program? The one built into the Windows 10 has too few options.

 

[AlainCo]

Alex,

IrfanView will let you play a slide show within the app, or save it as a self-contained .exe file, and apply some parameters (sequential/random view, view time, full screen/window,...).

Cheers,

AlainCo

 

[dlroberts]

FastStone Image Viewer

 

[tbcass]

FastStone Image Viewer - Powerful and Intuitive Photo Viewer, Editor and Batch Converter

 

[Alex Ethridge]

I'm guessing that these two, IrfanView and FastStone are going to be the best of low cost or free so I'm trying them out. But I'm still open to other suggestions. The only thing I have not discovered yet that I would like to is how I might put it in a window that I could resize to my liking and drag it to where I would like on the screen.

 

[butterflyman]

Nikon NX Studio will also do it.

 

[AstigmaticOwl]

You don't say whether you are Mac or PC.

On a Windows machine you can use the Photo app.

On Windows 10:

- open a folder of images

- click on an image. You may have to select "open with Photo"

- in the upper right corner, click on the 3 dots (...) and select Slideshow in the dropdown menu

It will cycle through all of the images in the folder until you hit the ESC key.

 

[tbcass]

You don't say whether you are Mac or PC.

Yes, he did. He has Windows 10.

On a Windows machine you can use the Photo app.

He doesn't like that one. He said;

"So, what suggestions does anyone have for a free or low-cost program? The one built into the Windows 10 has too few options."

 

[Graham Meale]

Windows offers this. Double-click the folder to open it then select slide show. (I then right click and select pause, which enables me to use a remote pointer to advance when I'm doing public presentations.)

Edit: Actually, I just tried it on my Windows 11 desktop computer and, you're absolutely right, the slide show option appears to be gone. When I do presentations I transfer to an older laptop running Windows XP, which does have the option. On my desktop I can achieve it in FastStone Image Viewer, as others have suggested. I've told Windows to make it my default image viewer, so it runs very smoothly.

--
www.grahammeale.info

 

[ormdig]

W10 does have all the options you list in Settings/Personalize/Background. It has the same options that W7 did. The only thing I had to do different was the time for each photo in W10 has a minimum of 1 minute which is longer than I want. There is an easy workaround you can look up online to make it much shorter. I use 2 monitors with each photo showing 15 seconds. Since the photos alternate I get a new one every 7.5 seconds. You can customize background colors, tiles etc. that allow you to configure how and where on the screen you want the photos to show, the same as in previous versions. My "favorites" album that I created just for this purpose currently has 644 photos in it which gives me the whole album every 80 minutes,

--
Pete

 

[Guy Parsons]

No longer supported by Google but still works in Win10. Look around for a free download, it's everywhere.

To get a slide show of a folder...



When the first frame appears there is an option to set timing and style of changes...



Usually though I end up using FastStone Viewer.

 

[sybersitizen]

... I could select how long each image displayed. I could tell it to do random order rather than consecutive. I could set a display time per photo. And I could select to use photos from subfolders as well if I wanted... The one built into the Windows 10 has too few options.

Windows offers this. Double-click the folder to open it then select slide show. (I then right click and select pause, which enables me to use a remote pointer to advance when I'm doing public presentations.)

Edit: Actually, I just tried it on my Windows 11 desktop computer and, you're absolutely right, the slide show option appears to be gone. When I do presentations I transfer to an older laptop running Windows XP, which does have the option.

It offers all the features described by the OP?

 

[Graham Meale]

It offers all the features described by the OP?

Probably not, I must admit.

--
www.grahammeale.info

 

[jboyer]

W10 does have all the options you list in Settings/Personalize/Background. It has the same options that W7 did. The only thing I had to do different was the time for each photo in W10 has a minimum of 1 minute which is longer than I want. There is an easy workaround you can look up online to make it much shorter. I use 2 monitors with each photo showing 15 seconds. Since the photos alternate I get a new one every 7.5 seconds. You can customize background colors, tiles etc. that allow you to configure how and where on the screen you want the photos to show, the same as in previous versions. My "favorites" album that I created just for this purpose currently has 644 photos in it which gives me the whole album every 80 minutes,

While digging In Windows 11, I found the Create a new video as an option when right-clicking on images.

Not answering the OP, but I thought it was worth sharing. Works fine and so easy to use. (FREE too!)


Window 11File Options

--
Jerome Boyer
http://jeromelouiseboyer.zenfolio.com/

 

[Jim Cassatt]

Just tried this on my windows laptop. Put all of the pictures in one folder. Double click on the first. On my computer it opens full screen. Then use the arrow keys to advance to the next picture etc. My laptop is running Windows 10, but I remember doing the same procedure with windows 10.

 

[sybersitizen]

Just tried this on my windows laptop. Put all of the pictures in one folder. Double click on the first. On my computer it opens full screen. Then use the arrow keys to advance to the next picture etc.

That feature was addressed already, and is not what the OP wants. He said so in his first post.

My laptop is running Windows 10, but I remember doing the same procedure with windows 10.

Windows 10 is Windows 10. The specific capabilities the OP wants were not in the photo viewers for Windows 7 or 8 either, if that's what you mean.

However, it turns out that a tool 'buried' in Windows 10 File Explorer can produce a continuous automatic slideshow that does everything the OP asked for:

https://www.howtogeek.com/443529/how-to-view-a-slideshow-on-windows-10/

Refer to the Use the Picture Tools in File Explorer section.

 

[Alex Ethridge]

Thanks.