Open Images (or Any File) from WSL2 — Directly in Windows

An M. Rodriguez (ORCID)

Preferred Frame Writing — January 2026

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One-Sentence Summary

Open images and any other files from the WSL2 terminal directly in their native Windows applications.

Summary

Working in WSL2 often breaks simple workflows like opening images or PDFs from the terminal. This article presents a minimal, reliable shell function that opens any file from WSL2 using Windows Explorer, avoiding common issues with UNC paths and unreliable direct application launches.

Keywords

Keywords: WSL2, Windows Subsystem for Linux, zsh, bash, Windows, productivity, developer tools

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