View GeoTIFFs on a map

A GeoTIFF is a standard raster image format that embeds geospatial metadata — coordinate reference system, bounding box, and resolution — directly inside the file. That metadata is what lets GIS software like QGIS or ArcGIS place the image at the right location on a map. The problem is that only a fraction of your audience has GIS software installed. Everyone else needs a browser-friendly way to see the data.

This free GeoTIFF viewer loads your file directly in the browser and renders it on an interactive Leaflet map over a street or satellite basemap. No upload, no server, no GIS license required. You can pan across the raster, zoom into individual features at full pixel resolution, and see the file's dimensions, data type, compression and coordinate system in the stats bar. It is designed for quick desktop review: drop a file, inspect it, close the tab.

Supported formats

The viewer reads standard GeoTIFF and Cloud Optimized GeoTIFF (COG) files in 8-bit, 16-bit and floating-point form. Single-band rasters (elevation models, thermal imagery, NDVI indices) are supported alongside multi-band rasters such as RGB orthomosaics, RGBA with an alpha band, and paletted classifications. The coordinate reference system is read from the file's embedded EPSG code and the raster is warped onto the web map in your browser. UTM zones (WGS 84, NAD83, ETRS89), Australian MGA, NZTM, British National Grid, US State Plane and most national grids are covered by a built-in table of about 4,750 definitions, with no online lookup. A custom projection without an EPSG code needs reprojecting in QGIS first, and a plain TIFF with no georeferencing is shown as a flat image.

COG files are particularly efficient in the browser. Because a COG stores internal overviews and organizes data in tiles, the viewer can load only the portion of the file visible at the current zoom level, so a 10 GB orthomosaic behaves like a small image at overview zoom, loading detail progressively as you zoom in. A GeoTIFF without internal overviews has to be decoded in full before rendering, so the viewer accepts those up to 1 GB of pixels and shows anything over 256 MB at reduced resolution. For larger files, convert to COG in QGIS or GDAL before dropping them in, or upload the file to Swyvl, which converts it to a streaming COG for you and gives you a share link.

Privacy — your file never leaves your device

The viewer reads your GeoTIFF using the browser's File API and processes it entirely in local memory. Nothing is sent over the network. There are no analytics on file contents, no server-side parsing, and no upload step — even for files several gigabytes in size. The data stays on your machine from the moment you drop the file to the moment you close the tab.

Navigation

Pan: click and drag on the map. Zoom: scroll wheel, or use the + / − buttons. Street / Satellite switches the basemap under your raster. The stats bar shows the pixel dimensions, band count, data type, compression, EPSG code and how the raster is being rendered. The Fit to extent button zooms the map back to the full raster bounding box if you have panned away from it.

Browser support

The viewer runs in Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge on desktop. Mobile browsers are supported but the experience is best on a larger screen for spatial data inspection. WebGL is not required — the viewer uses Leaflet's standard canvas renderer.