Windows 11 thumbnail preview in folder

Windows 11 no longer includes thumbnail previews for multimedia folder icons by default. Instead, a little white stripe on the folder icons confirms the folder has content.

If you often work with coordinated image groups, this tiny detail may sometimes slow down your productivity. For example, if you have tens of thousands of images stored in hundreds of folders, thumbnail previews can help you find the pictures you need. Otherwise, you’ll need to sort the images by date modified or become more organized when creating your folders.

How Do I Enable Thumbnail Preview in Windows 11?

Unfortunately, selecting different View options doesn’t do anything. The folder icon design won’t change. The only difference is that you’ll get larger or smaller folder icons.

Use a Thumbnail Generator

What you can do instead is install a thumbnail generator. You’ll find plenty of thumbnail generators on GitHub. Unfortunately, with many of these tools, it’s hit or miss. You may need to try out several thumbnail generators until you find the one that suits your needs and works as intended on your machine.

Meet the WindowsThumbnailGenerator

For example, you can download and install the WindowsThumbnailGenerator from GitHub. Remember that you need .NET 5.0 Desktop Runtime to run this tool.

The app relies on ImageMagick with C# to generate composite thumbnails based on the files stored inside your folders. The thumbnail previews are not identical to Windows 10’s thumbnail previews, but at least it’s something. Currently, the tool supports only media file formats (pictures and videos). Vertical file thumbnails such as text files are not supported.

Roll Back to Windows 10

If not having native thumbnail previews for multimedia folders is a major issue for you, you can simply downgrade to Windows 10. Many users decided to go back to Windows 10 just for that function.

As a quick reminder, the downgrade option is available for up to 10 days after installing Windows 11. If more than 10 days have passed, you’ll need to uninstall Windows 11 and reinstall Windows 10 manually.

Conclusion

Windows 11 no longer supports thumbnail previews for multimedia folder icons. There’s no built-in option to enable this feature. As a workaround, you can install the WindowsThumbnailGenerator from GitHub.

What do you think about the lack of thumbnail previews on Windows 11? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Hello. I tried to sort my photos out but it is quite hard when you cannot see the thumbnails. Is there any way to enable thumbnail previews in Windows 11?

Solved Answer

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• Method 1. Turn On Thumbnail Previews
• Method 2. Clear and Reset Thumbnail Cache
• Method 3. Enable Preview Pane in File Explorer
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Microsoft released Windows 11 back in 2021 and it has received both praise and criticism. Initially, the newest version was full of bugs. We previously wrote about Windows 11 issues like clock and date missing, File Explorer lagging, and fingerprint reader not working. However, one of the most controversial changes that Microsoft made was to remove thumbnails for multimedia folder icons. Instead, a little white stripe on the folder icon confirms the folder has content.

This has made a lot of users unhappy, and frustrated. Now sorting files in folders is more difficult since people cannot see what is inside without clicking on the folder. However, another issue has occurred. For some users, thumbnail previews in File Explorer for pictures were also disabled by default when they upgraded the system.

If people wanted to sort through thousands of pictures, this would be an extremely lengthy process, as they would have to open every single image to see it. Fortunately, there is a way to enable thumbnail previews in File Explorer in Windows 11. In this guide, you will find 3 methods that might help you fix the issue, and help see pictures better.

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Method 1. Turn On Thumbnail Previews

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• Open File Explorer
• Click on the See more (3 dots) button, and tap on Options
• Check (off) or uncheck (on) Always show icons, never thumbnails, and click on OK

Method 2. Clear and Reset Thumbnail Cache

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If thumbnail previews are enabled and turned on with the Photos app but you are still not seeing them, then you can try clearing and resetting the thumbnail cache.

• Open Disk Cleanup
• Select the Windows C: drive and click on OK
• Check the Thumbnails box, and tap on OK
• Tap on Delete Files to confirm

• When finished, restart the computer

Method 3. Enable Preview Pane in File Explorer

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In addition, you could enable the preview pane in File Explorer below to make seeing previews of the images easier.

• Open File Explorer
• Click on View on the command bar
• Tap on Show
• Check Preview pane

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