‘Sometimes the things you’ve lostcan be found again in unexpected places’Daniel HandlerFor those PC users who have a lot of files to navigate through, thumbnails are undoubtedly an indispensable feature. Those small previews help us find what we are looking for and save us a lot of time and effort. And as you might guess, it is extremely dispiriting when they disappear.Unfortunately, missing thumbnails are quite a common issue these days. The main reason for this is that your thumbnail cache accumulates continually, which makes your cache database prone to corruption.The good news is, you can easily fix thumbnails messed up in Windows 10.
In this method, we will be enabling the thumbnail previews from within the visual effects settings. Follow these steps: Press Windows key + X to invoke the pop-up menu above the start button. Select System from the list. Now on the left hand side, you will see a link that says “Advanced system settings”. Why isn't my Windows 10 showing thumbnails for PDF files? It is because, in your Folder Options dialog box, you have the options “Always show icons, never thumbnails” and “Display file icon on thumbnails” checked. Uncheck them, click OK,.
For this, make use of our proven tips on how to restore thumbnails icons on Windows 10: 1. Clean up your diskYour disk might be stuffed full of unnecessary files.
Using the Disk Cleanup feature will help you rebuild your thumbnail cache:. Open your File Explorer. Click This PC. Right-click the drive where you Windows is installed.
Select Properties. Then select Disk Cleanup. Check the box next to Thumbnails. Make sure all other options are unchecked. Click OK and then Delete Files.Wait for the process to finish.
Then check if your issue has been resolved. And if you’d prefer also to speed up your PC, you can run. It is a safe and quite effective software. Recreate your thumbnail cache with Command PromptTo get rid of unnecessary thumbnail cache and make your system show thumbnails again, you need to execute the following commands, using your Command Prompt.
Here is how you can do that:. Click on the Windows logo icon on your Taskbar. The start menu will open.
Now locate the Search area. Type ‘cmd’ (without quotes) into Search and hit Enter.
Locate Command Prompt in the list of available options. Right-click on it and select Run as administrator. This will open an elevated Command Prompt window. To begin with, you should stop File Explorer. For this purpose, type the following command into the Command Prompt window and press the Enter key: taskkill /f /im explorer.exe. Now let’s delete thumbnails from your database by using the following command: del /f /s /q /a%LocalAppData%MicrosoftWindowsExplorerthumbcache.db Then press Enter.
It is time to start File Explorer: start explorer.exeFinally, exit the Command Prompt window and restart your PC. Check if your thumbnails are present and displayed correctly. Use Run to clean up your diskIf all the fixes above have failed to help you, you can try using Run to get your disk cleaned up. This will delete your thumbnail cache and allow you to have the thumbnail feature up and running again. Here is what you should do:. Navigate to your Taskbar.
Right-click on the Windows logo icon. Select Run from the menu.
Type cleanmgr.exe into Run. Press Enter. In the window that has opened, proceed to Thumbnails and check the box next to this option. Click OK to provide your confirmation.Be patient until the clean-up process is complete.
Reboot your PC and check if thumbnails show up again.No luck so far? Anyway, there is no need to despair. One of the following methods is sure to resolve your problem. Configure your folder settingsIf your thumbnails have gone missing, chances are your folder settings have been interfered with. That is how you can fix them:. Open your File Explorer and navigate to the View tab. Click Options.
Folder Options will open. Click on View. Uncheck Always show icons, never thumbnails. Click Apply and then OK.Now check your thumbnails. Hopefully, they are available now. Configure your visual effects, using Control PanelAnother solution that may help you implies dealing with your visual settings.
That’s what you need to do:. Click on the Windows icon to open the Start menu. Locate and click Control Panel. Select System and open Advanced system settings. Navigate to the Advanced tab. Open Performance Settings. Proceed to the Visual Effects tab.
Make sure to check the Show thumbnails instead of icons option. Click Apply. Restart your File Explorer.All to no avail?
Then we recommend applying the following fix. Tweak your display properties and rebuild thumbnail cacheIf you have made this far, then your thumbnails are still missing. It seems that to restore them, you might need to configure your display properties and then rebuild your thumbnail cache. For this purpose, use the instructions below:.
Go to your desktop. Right-click on an empty space there. Select Personalize. Click on Display Properties. Navigate to colors. Select Medium (16-bit). If you already have Medium selected, switch to Highest (32-bit).
Click Yes to confirm your settings. Restart your PC. Launch your File Explorer. Go to the View tab.
Click Options and move to Folder Options. Select Show hidden files and folders. Now go to C:Users(User Name)ImageAppDataLocal. Delete ImageIconCache.db. Close the window and empty the Recycle bin. You might need to restart your PC several times for this trick to work.We hope we helped you fix thumbnails messed up in Windows 10. However, if you are still having issues with them, there might be something wrong with your system registry.
This component is really fragile, so we recommend using a special tool to perform manipulations on Windows Registry. For example, Auslogics Registry Cleaner is a 100% free product that will repair your registry in a safe and efficient way.Please do not hesitate to leave a comment if you need further assistance.
RECOMMENDED:The File Explorer (popularly known as Windows Explorer) in Windows 10 offers a total of eight views: extra large icons, large icons, small icons, tiles, list, content, medium icons and details. One can easily switch between these views by clicking the View tab and then clicking on a view.When the File Explorer’s view is set to extra large icons, large icons, medium icons, details or tiles view, the File Explorer displays thumbnail previews of pictures and videos so that users can easily find files they are looking for.Many users who are on Windows 10 are reporting that Windows 10 File Explorer doesn’t display thumbnail previews for pictures and videos. If File Explorer is not showing thumbnail previews for videos or photos in Windows 10, try out the following solutions.Solution 1 of 4 Check if thumbnail preview supported view is turned onBefore doing anything else, make sure that you have turned on the thumbnail preview supported view for the folder where you have your videos or photos. Note that every folder can have its own view setting, and when you change the view, it won’t be applied to all the folders on your PC.To turn on thumbnail preview supported view, click on the View tab, and then click on one of the following views:# Extra large icons# Large icons# Medium icons# Tiles# ContentAll the above mentioned views support thumbnail previews. Select on one of the above mentioned views to turn on thumbnail view.Solution 2 of 4 Check if thumbnails are disabledEven if the thumbnail preview supported view is turned on for a particular folder, thumbnails for files won’t be displayed if the File Explorer is configured to show icons instead of thumbnails. When thumbnails are turned off, the File Explorer displays icons of the default program for the file type instead of the thumbnail preview.Here is how to turn on Thumbnails in Windows 10:Step 1: Open up File Explorer. Click the File menu and then click Change folder and search options to open Folder Options.
If a file is selected in the particular folder, you might see just Options instead of Change folder and search options. Clicking Options will also open Folder Options.Step 2: Switch to the View tab. Under Advanced settings section, uncheck the option labelled Always show icons, never thumbnails, and then click Apply button to enable thumbnails in Windows Explorer.Solution 3 of 4 Clear thumbnail cacheIf the File Explorer is displaying blurry thumbnails for one or more files, it could be because of the corrupted thumbnail cache.
You can clear and reset the thumbnail cache with a few mouse clicks by following the instructions in our guide.Solution 4 of 4 Install a third-party thumbnail generatorAs some of you likely know, Windows Explorer or File Explorer doesn’t support thumbnail view feature for all file types. While most of the popular video and image file types are supported, icons are displayed instead of thumbnails for many file types.If you prefer to get thumbnail preview for all video and image file types, you need to install a free program called. The program adds thumbnail support for over 15 file types.
If you prefer to get thumbnail preview for all video and image file types, you need to install a free program called Icaros.Wow, that is a cool deal – freeware, and not a trogan or malware hiding. No bloat, simple interface, and not only did it fix my mp4 thumnail issue, I now have thumnails for a lot more things as well, like my photoshop files and other.Thank you for the information! (And to others, do be sure and enable the checkbox for it to work, and make sure you have thumbnails enabled in view).Best wishes, awesome to have this work!.??????????????
ALELUIA!!!!WORKS!Wayne T saysNovember 7, 2016 at 6:42 pmAfter a recent install of 10 on my P.C., the File Explorer view tab had sections that were greyed out, and I couldn’t preview any photos. The thumbnails and icon just would never come up. So, I searched and searched and attempted all of the solutions found.but nothing. Until one day I started the Task Manager and saw a reset button on the lower right side of the window.
I highlighted file explorer, hit the reset button and like magic, my thumbnails, icons and view settings appeared. This is the only fix I found. If it doesn’t work on the first try, just do it again; it usually doesn’t take more than three attempts.j says. After a recent install of 10 on my P.C., the File Explorer view tab had sections that were greyed out, and I couldn’t preview any photos. The thumbnails and icon just would never come up. So, I searched and searched and attempted all of the solutions found.but nothing. Until one day I started the Task Manager and saw a reset button on the lower right side of the window.
I highlighted file explorer, hit the reset button and like magic, my thumbnails, icons and view settings appeared. This is the only fix I found. If it doesn’t work on the first try, just do it again; it usually doesn’t take more than three attempts.Happy Camera says.