Photo Viewer Not Enough Memory? Here’s How To Fix It

Photo Viewer has been the default image viewer for the entire Windows operating system family. The simple user interface makes it convenient for the users to view their media. However, you might still run into a few problems.

Many users have reported having met with the “Windows Photo Viewer can’t display this picture because there might not be enough memory available on your computer….” error when opening their image from Photo Viewer. Imagine viewing such a long error message in place of your image; now that’s a bummer!

If you’ve encountered this problem, we’re here to help you get back to viewing your images! This article will help you get insight into this problem and find relevant fixes, so keep reading and get this issue solved in no time.

Why Can’t Photo Viewer Display My Image?

There can be a list of reasons why Photo Viewer may not display your image. One of the obvious problems is, well, you guess it, insufficient memory. Although this is the problem Windows prompts you to fix, there are other reasons why you encountered this issue.

Insufficient Memory: Let’s begin with the basics. Every application needs a certain amount of RAM. If you have heavy applications running in the background, this leaves a lot less RAM for your Photo viewer application. You can also meet this message if your hard disk is almost full.
Unsupported Image Format: Photo Viewer only supports a handful of image formats: BMP, JPEG, JPEG XR, PNG, ICO, GIF, and TIFF. If your image is of any other format, unfortunately, the Photo viewer won’t be able to read it in order to display it.
Large Image File: You can’t open images larger than 100 megapixels from Photo Viewer. Check if your image resolution exceeds this value.
Corrupted Image File: Did you get interrupted while importing or downloading the photo? If something went wrong during this process, your image might’ve gone corrupt. As the image isn’t completely stored on your device, Photo Viewer does not have enough information to display the image.
Encrypted Image: The images could be encrypted if you’ve imported the image from your mobile phone. Even if you haven’t imported this image from a mobile phone, you could count this as a possibility. Photo viewer does not have the resources to decrypt an encrypted file so you might’ve encountered this issue.
Outdated Software: When you leave your software outdated, it will lack the resources the newer updates have. Additionally, newer updates push fixes for the existing bugs in the previous updates. If you haven’t updated your software, you might have to deal with this issue.
System Error: There might be no fault on your end. Sometimes, internal errors can be responsible for many of your system applications malfunctioning.

How to Fix Photo Viewer Not Enough Memory?

After you’ve diagnosed the problem, you can move on to viable solutions. You can try solutions that range from changing your display profile to reinstalling your Photo Viewer application. You can refer to the solutions discussed below to find the one that best suits you.

Clear Memory

First and foremost, give your application some room to breathe! If you’re not actively using the heavy background applications, close them. You can close these applications from your task manager.

Follow these steps to close applications from the task manager.

Use the combination Ctrl + Shift + Esc to open the task manager window on your keyboard.
On the Processes tab, locate the applications you want to close.
Right-click on one of the applications and select End Task.
Repeat Step 3 for all the applications you want to close. Then, select the X icon on the window’s top-right corner to exit the task manager.
Restart your device.

If you consistently need to use these applications, expand your RAM storage.

Change Default App

If Photo Viewer doesn’t support the image format you’re trying to open from, you can change the default application responsible for opening the image with that specific file format.
Follow these steps to change the default application for file types on Windows Settings:

Use the Windows key + I shortcut to open the Settings application.
From the navigation panel to your left, select Apps.
Select Default apps.
Under Set a default for a file type or link type, enter your file extension.
Select the Expand button on the results page next to your current default application.
Select the application that supports your image format.

Run System File Checker

You can run the system file checker from the command prompt to repair and recover corrupt files. The system automatically checks and repairs corrupted files when you run this command.

Follow these steps to perform the system scan:

Launch Start. On the search bar, type in cmd.
From the search results, right-click on Command Prompt and select Run as administrator.
On the Command Prompt window, type in the command: sfc /scannow and hit the Enter key.

Command Prompt will automatically locate and repair your files.

Turn Off File Encryption

Your PC might have enabled encryption to secure the contents of the files. You can disable file encryption on your PC.

Follow these steps to turn off file encryption from advanced properties on your PC:

Open File Explorer.
Navigate to the location of your image.
Right-click on the file and select Properties.
Head on to Advanced from the General tab.
Under Compress or Encrypt attributes, uncheck the box next to Encrypt contents to secure data.

Update Windows

It is very simple to update your Windows. Although Windows automatically alerts users about a pending update, manually checking for some won’t hurt.

Follow these steps to check and update your software:

On your keyboard, hit the shortcut, Windows key + I.
Select Windows Update from the navigation panel to your left.
Click on the Check for updates button.
If you have any pending updates, Windows will prompt you to install them.

Change Device Profile

Many users have reported that changing the device profile in Color Management has fixed this specific issue for them. You may want to jump into the bandwagon and see if this fix works for you.

Follow these steps to change the device profile:

Use the combination, Windows key + R to open Run.
On the search box, type in colorcpl.exe, then hit Enter.
On the Color Management window, head on to the Advanced tab.
Under Windows Color System Defaults, locate Device Profile.
Drop the menu next to Device Profile and select Agfa: Swop Standard.
On the bottom-right corner of the window, select Close.

Reset/Repair Application

There may be something wrong with the Photo Viewer application itself. In Windows, you have an option to either reset or repair applications when they begin to malfunction.

You can first try to repair the application. The system will check the program files when you repair an application. If it locates a file that needs repairing, it will swap it with another working file.

Resetting will completely remove all existing data related to the application. This eliminates existing bugs and gives your application a clean slate to work on.

Follow these steps to either repair or reset the Photo viewer application:

Launch Start, then open the Settings application.
From the sidebar to your left, select Apps.
Select Apps & features from the list of options.
Under App list, type Microsoft Photos.
Click on the vertical Three-dot menu, then select Advanced Options.
Scroll down to Reset. According to your preference, select either Repair or Reset.

Run Troubleshooter

The Photo viewer is a built-in application on Windows. If you cannot figure out what is wrong with the application, you can run the Windows Store App troubleshoot. This will scan through the application and offer you a fix.

Here is how you can run the Windows troubleshooter on your PC:

Press and hold the Windows key and then the I key to open the Settings application.
From System, scroll down to Troubleshoot.
Under Options, click on Other troubleshooters.
Scroll down to locate Windows Store App. Select the Run button next to it.
Wait for the diagnostics to perform the scan.
Windows will prompt you with a suggestion. You can apply the solution accordingly.

Reinstall Photo Viewer

You can reinstall the photo viewer application as a last resort for this issue. As this is a built-in application for Windows, you may only reinstall it from powershell. It might initially sound intimidating, but it’s not as complex as it sounds.

Follow along with these steps to reinstall Photo Viewer on your Windows:

Right-click on the Start from your taskbar.
Select Windows Terminal (Admin).
Allow Windows Terminal to make changes to your device.
On the Powershell window, to uninstall the Photos application, copy-paste this command:
Get-AppxPackage Microsoft.Windows.Photos | Remove-AppxPackage
To re-install the application, type in the following command:
Get-AppxPackage -allusers Microsoft.Windows.Photos | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register "$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml"}
Reboot your PC to confirm changes.