FastMediaSorter LITE is a file manager designed to help photographers and content creators quickly sort, view, and manage image and video files.
Key Features:
Supports a wide range of media formats for versatile use.
Offers slideshow and random viewing modes for easy navigation.
Tracks recent files and folders for quick access.
Provides fast move, copy, rename, and delete operations with customizable hotkeys.
Includes an image panel for visual navigation and multi-language support (English/Russian).
Audience & Benefit:
Ideal for photographers and content creators who need to efficiently triage large collections of media files. FastMediaSorter LITE streamlines the sorting process, saving time and reducing clutter.
The software can be installed via winget, making it easy to integrate into your workflow.
README
Fast Media Sorter for Windows
Fast Media Sorter for Windows (formerly FastMediaSorter LITE - it is still published under that name in the Microsoft Store and winget) is a Windows Forms application for quickly sorting, viewing, and managing image and video files - because that folder full of 4000 photos is not going to triage itself. It supports a wide range of media formats and provides features such as:
Fast navigation through large folders of images and videos (even the embarrassingly large ones)
Slideshow and random file viewing modes
Recent files and folders tracking, so you don't have to remember where you left off
File operations: move, copy, rename, and delete
Move or copy, decided as you go: a digit 1..9/0 moves the current file into that folder, Shift + the same top-row digit copies it there - no mode to switch on beforehand and forget about. The same pair is on the recipients panel, in both media menus, and in the recipients table (Shift + double-click). Whether a copy then jumps to the next file is one checkbox in Settings, on by default (64-bit program)
Recipients panel over the media: a floating list of your hotkey destination folders - click a row to move the current file there, the narrow zone beside it to copy it (or delete it), so you can sort one-handed with the mouse (off by default; toggle in Settings)
Image panel for quick visual navigation
Automatic EXIF orientation correction, for when the camera was held sideways
High-quality (bicubic) scaling for sharp downscaling of large images
Optional on-image overlay with the file name and position (handy in full-screen)
Configurable slideshow interval
Register the app as the default image viewer and/or video player (per-user, no admin rituals)
Android Folder Share: turn this PC into an SFTP server for your own media and file folders and open them from the Android app - over your home LAN or across the internet, paired by scanning a QR code (a built-in copilot for the mobile version). 64-bit program only
OCR + on-image translation overlay (local Ollama / LibreTranslate) - for pictures that insist on speaking another language
Perspective ("Ambilight-style") background: the bars beside a photo are filled with colour drawn from its own edges, so it sits in its own light instead of on black. Optionally as a halo that fades out into the background (64-bit program)
Zoom at the mouse cursor on the grey NumPad keys, with drag-to-pan (64-bit program)
A video control bar - seek, time, mute, volume - plus audio-track and subtitle picking remembered by language, and "Open URL.." to play a video straight off , , and friends (64-bit program)
Menus right on the media: middle-click a picture, right-click a video (64-bit program)
Customizable keyboard shortcuts, because reaching for the mouse is so last decade
Interface in 13 languages - English, Russian, Ukrainian, German, Italian, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Arabic, Hindi, Bengali, Urdu and Chinese. The first run follows your Windows display language; the toolbar button switches it any time, and the Share Manager follows the same choice. Arabic and Urdu are laid out right to left. Only English, Russian and Ukrainian are proofread by the author - the other ten are machine translations and are not proofread, so corrections through the issue tracker are very welcome. The 32-bit fallback build keeps English and Russian only (Windows 7 has no font for the Indic scripts), and the setup wizard stays English.
Broad video format support: everything (H.264/MP4, AVI, ZMBV, VP9, MKV, WMV, ..)
plays in-window through the bundled LibVLC engine - no external codecs, no
plugin scavenger hunt, and nothing that depends on Internet Explorer still being
installed
Mobile Version 📱
Want to sort media from the comfort of the couch? Check out FastMediaSorter v2 - a powerful Android application with support for local files, network drives (SMB, SFTP, FTP), and cloud storage (Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox):
Desktop as copilot: Fast Media Sorter for Windows can act as the mobile app's server. Its Android Folder Share feature runs a built-in SFTP server for your own media and file folders, so the Android app browses this PC directly - on your home network or over the internet - after a one-time QR pairing. Folder sharing is managed by a bundled tray companion, Fast Media Sorter: Share Manager (opened from the viewer's folder right-click or from Settings → Files and system). Sharing is an explicit opt-in: enable the server features (a checkbox during installation, or a one-time button in Share Manager) to add the Windows Firewall rule - until then the app is a pure viewer/sorter. See the step-by-step guide to publishing your folders for Android.
Usage
Select a folder containing your media files (yes, that one).
Navigate files using keyboard, mouse, or on-screen buttons - whatever your hands prefer.
Use the panel and recent files features for quick access.
Move, copy, or delete files as needed. Press a digit, watch the chaos shrink.
Enjoy fast and efficient media sorting, and maybe finally reclaim that disk space.
Two programs, one app
The package ships two viewers side by side in the same folder, and the installer
sets up both. You never have to choose: the shortcut and file associations
automatically point at the one that actually runs on your machine.
FastMediaSorter_LITE.exe - the main program, now 64-bit and built on
.NET 10. It replaces the previous version in place and keeps all your settings.
Nothing to install - the .NET runtime lives inside the program itself, so the
old ".NET Framework 4.8 required" line is gone for good. Needs Windows 10 version
1607 or newer, Windows 11, or Windows Server 2016+.
FastMediaSorter_x86.exe - the sorter as a small 32-bit program (~3 MB)
for Windows 7/8.1 and 32-bit Windows, where the modern runtime simply cannot run.
It needs .NET Framework 4.8, which those Windows versions either already have or
can get. Sorting, browsing, OCR and translation are all still in there; what it
does not have is Android folder sharing (see the table below) and the extras the
modern runtime made possible - zoom on the grey keys, the video control bar,
audio/subtitle track picking, "Open URL..", the picture and video menus and the
perspective halo.
They are one application, not two rivals: one set of settings, one window. Start
one while the other is open and it just brings the open window forward with your
file - no second window, no squabbling over whose settings get saved. Both also
share the same adjacent libraries (codecs, OCR/translation models), each
automatically picking the ones matching its own bitness.
What the 64-bit program adds
Animated WEBP now opens everywhere. The app decodes WEBP itself instead of
depending on the Windows "WebP Image Extensions" codec, which server editions of
Windows don't ship - animated WEBP used to simply fail there.
HEIC, HEIF and AVIF open too - the formats iPhones save by default and the web
increasingly serves. Decoded by the app itself, so no Store extensions and no paid
"HEVC Video Extensions" codec are needed; sideways phone shots come up the right
way round.
Video always plays through the built-in VLC engine. The retired Internet
Explorer component is no longer used, so playback works the same on systems where
IE has been shown the door. (The 32-bit program keeps the classic path.)
A video control bar: play/pause, seek, running time, mute and volume, along the
bottom of the picture. It appears on mouse-over and slips away a couple of seconds
later, and stays put while the video is paused. (The 32-bit program's video runs
through the IE component, which draws its own controls.)
Zoom on the grey keys: grey +/- zoom at the mouse cursor, grey / fits,
grey * is actual size. Drag to pan. The wheel still flips through files unless
you switch it to zoom in Settings.
Audio track and subtitle picking: A cycles audio, V subtitles, and a
"Tracks" button appears only when the file offers a choice. Your pick is remembered
by language, so the next episode comes up the same way.
"Open URL.." - play a video straight off smb://, sftp://, ftp://,
http(s)://, nfs:// or rtsp:// without downloading it first.
Menus on the media: middle-click a picture for everything you can do to it,
right-click a video for everything you can do to that. Click a video to
pause/resume.
A halo instead of bars - "Dynamic perspective", a sub-option of the perspective
background, fades the bars into the background the further they get from the photo.
Requirements
Short version: the installer works this out for you (see above). Long version:
FastMediaSorter_LITE.exe (main, 64-bit)
FastMediaSorter_x86.exe (32-bit)
Windows
10 version 1607+, 11, Server 2016+
7, 8.1, 10, 11 - including 32-bit
Runtime
none - it is inside the program
.NET Framework 4.8
Sorting, browsing, slideshow
yes
yes
OCR + on-image translation
yes
yes
Recipients panel
yes
yes
Video
LibVLC, with a control bar
IE component (H.264) + LibVLC fallback
HEIC / HEIF / AVIF
yes
no - Windows 7/8.1 have no codecs for them
Zoom keys, track picking, "Open URL..", media menus, perspective halo
yes
no
Android folder sharing
yes
no - the Share Manager is itself a 64-bit program, so it cannot start on the Windows versions this build is for
Installation
winget
winget install --id SerZhyAle.FastMediaSorter
The winget package uses the Inno Setup installer in silent per-user mode, so it
does not show dialogs during installation - it just quietly gets on with it.
FastMediaSorter--windows-x64-setup.exe for the easiest install
FastMediaSorter--windows-x64.zip for a portable offline bundle
Both assets contain both programs - the asset names have not changed.
The interactive setup can optionally register the app for common
image formats. On Windows 10/11, the system may still ask you to confirm the
choice once in Default Apps.
Both GitHub release assets are offline-ready: they already include VLC runtimes
and OCR language packs, so no first-run download is needed for media playback or
OCR recognition.
What's in the package (and why it's large)
The main program is a single ~110 MB exe because it carries its own .NET runtime -
that heft is exactly why there is nothing to install: the runtime comes along for
the ride instead of being demanded from your machine. (The 32-bit program beside it
is ~3 MB.) Most of the rest of the download is optional, offline-ready payload,
bundled so the app works with no first-run download:
Video codecs (VLC) (~100 MB) - offline playback of AVI, MKV, VP9 and other
formats the built-in Windows player can't decode.
OCR & translation models (~45 MB) - on-image text recognition without a
network round-trip.
Android Folder Share companion (~120 MB) - a self-contained .NET app that
carries its own runtime (Windows does not ship the modern .NET it needs), used
to share folders to your phone. Being a 64-bit .NET 10 app itself, it is what
makes folder sharing a 64-bit-only feature, and setup skips it on Windows 7/8.1.
The bundled libraries are the 64-bit ones, for the main program. The 32-bit program
downloads the 32-bit codec and OCR pieces it needs on first use.
The interactive installer exposes these as selectable components and shows each
one's size: uncheck what you don't need and those parts download later on demand,
or the feature is simply left out. A viewer-only ("Compact") install is a fraction
of the full package. (Silent/winget installs always take the full set.)
Note: machine translation still depends on the provider you configure - the app
is generous, but it won't translate by sheer willpower. Ollama requires a
separate local install/model, while cloud providers need network access.
Companion App
For EPUB, PDF, FB2, MOBI, TXT, Markdown, and HTML document conversion, use the
companion project doc-html-translate:
Something misbehaves? Settings -> About -> "Send the logs to the author" packs the program logs
into an archive and opens a mail with it already attached. It shows you what is in the archive first,
and nothing is sent anywhere until you press Send in your own mail program.