LBRN Quick Look

Finder previews for laser projects. Press Space on a .lbrn2 file to see the drawing, the machine it was set up for and every layer’s speed, power and passes.

Download on the Mac App Store

$3.99, one-time purchase. macOS 14 or later. No in-app purchases, no data collected.

Quick Look window showing two coasters drawn from a LightBurn project, with the layer list on the right — Press Space in Finder.

Why it exists

LightBurn has no Quick Look support on the Mac, so Finder shows a blank document for every project. You open LightBurn just to find out which file is which. LBRN Quick Look reads the project file itself, so it works without LightBurn running or even installed.

What it does

Quick Look. The drawing at full size, drawn from the shapes in the file, with a short trace animation. Point at a layer to fade out the others. Next to it: the device, the LightBurn version, each layer’s speed, power and passes, the text in the file and your notes.

Thumbnails in Finder. Icon, list, column and gallery views show the drawing instead of a blank page.

Spotlight. Search for the device name, a layer name, a word you engraved or a LightBurn version.

Quick Actions and Shortcuts. Export Preview Image saves PNG files at 2048 pixels to Downloads › LBRN Previews. Copy Layer Settings copies a plain-text table of every layer.

Pointing at a layer in the list fades out the other layers in the drawing — Point at a layer to see only that layer.

How accurate is the drawing?

LightBurn saves a small 256 × 256 picture in each project. Before LBRN Quick Look shows its own sharp drawing, it compares it with that picture. If the two don’t match, you see LightBurn’s picture instead. Tested with 800 real projects from LightBurn 0.8 to 2.2: 98 % of the drawings that could be compared matched. Text is drawn from the outlines LightBurn stores; very old files without them show the saved picture.

Every number comes from the file. The app doesn’t estimate run times, suggest materials or fill in defaults that aren’t there.

The LBRN Quick Look window with recent projects and a preview — The app lists your recent projects.

Setup

Install LBRN Quick Look from the Mac App Store and open it once.
Open System Settings › General › Login Items & Extensions › Quick Look and turn on both entries: LBRN Preview (Space bar) and LBRN Thumbnails (Finder icons). On macOS 14 the path is Privacy & Security › Extensions › Quick Look.
Select a .lbrn2 file in Finder and press Space. No project at hand? Try the sample project.

For the Quick Actions, open the Shortcuts app, add Export Preview Image or Copy Layer Settings to a shortcut and turn on Use as Quick Action in its details.

Support

A file shows LightBurn’s small picture instead of a sharp drawing

That happens when the drawing didn’t match LightBurn’s picture, for example with text in old files or a feature the app doesn’t draw yet. If you can share the file, please send it to me; every file helps.

Some files still show a plain icon

Those files contain neither a saved picture nor shapes that can be drawn. Files from other programs that use the .lbrn extension are left alone.

Previews don’t update

Reset Quick Look in Terminal:

qlmanage -r
qlmanage -r cache
killall Finder

Refunds

Purchases go through Apple. Request a refund at reportaproblem.apple.com.

Contact

Email mika@kuusisto.tech. Include your macOS version, your LightBurn version if you have one, and the file if you can share it. I usually reply within two working days.

Privacy: LBRN Quick Look privacy policy.

Also by me: SKP Quick Look does the same for SketchUp models.