kittyimg

kittyimg is a Go library that allows to display images in terminal emulators implementing kitty's terminal graphics protocol.

✨ Features

A basic API (Fprint, Fprintln, Transcode) allows to display an image (loaded with stdlib's image package) at the cursor position.

go get github.com/dolmen-go/kittyimg@latest

A command-line tool (icat) is provided.

go install github.com/dolmen-go/kittyimg/cmd/icat@latest

icat <image> works the same as Kitty's command kitten icat --transfer-mode=stream --align=left <image>.

🏗️ Status

Production ready.

🔄 See also

The Go Playground has support for displaying images with its own protocol: IMAGE: prefix followed by base64 image file data.

Display tools for images on terminals:

• tycat: Similar tool to icat, but for the Enlightenment Terminology app (which uses a different terminal protocol).
• timg
• viu
• chafa

🛡️ License

Copyright 2021-2025 Olivier Mengué

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.