Enable or Disable Thumbnail Previews in File Explorer in Windows 10  

Hello John @ICIT2LOL,

Are these specific file types this happening with?

In the mean time, you might see if rebuilding the icon cache may help if it happens to be corrupted causing this.

Rebuild Icon Cache in Windows 10 | Tutorials

Hello Shawn it sems to be the desktop ones that are affected as now I cannot even delte them but I will try the Icon cache tutorial.

autolycus10 said:

In 'documents' or anywhere on my C drive (with the 'large icons' view option) my .jpg files show as icons rather than the thumbnails that i want to display. That is, all the files that have been there for some time. Two that i added yesterday display as thumbnails!

On my D drive, all my jpgs show as thumbnails.

I've tried a couple of the solutions here - settings in folder options and advanced performance - but that didn't help.

Any suggestions, please?

Hello autolycus10,

If you haven't already, you might see if clearing and resetting the thumnbail cache may help.

Clear and Reset Thumbnail Cache in Windows 10

autolycus10 said:

Hi - and thanks for replying. I've tried both methods but no joy. Actually the problem seems to be in 'documents' rather than my entire C drive.

I have noticed in 'documents' that where i have several .jpg files displaying a mixture of icons and thumbnails and i right-click > 'properties': 'icon' files show no data under details>origin; 'thumbnail' files show some data, for example "program name" as PaintshopPro.

This seems to be the only difference between the file properties and seems to be consistent in producing icons instead of thumbnails where 'origin' data are absent. This seems to apply only to bitmaps (videos produce thumbnails) and only in 'documents'. And until recently this has not been an issue.

I've noticed that if a folder as a lot large size files, the thumbnails may not always load for some or all of them.

As a test, does the thumbnail show for one of the affected files if you copy it to say your desktop?

autolycus10 said:

If i copy an affected jpg file to my desktop it shows as a thumbnail. If i drag and drop it, it shows as an icon.

Another strange thing i noticed: in my 'documents' folder if i choose "extra large icons" or "large icons" there is just one file amongst 81 items that for some reason shows as a thumbnail. If i choose "small icons" or "medium-sized icons" it shows as an icon like all the rest.

Since it shows when you copy the file, you might test moving the files to another location, and moving them back a bit at a time to see if they will continue to show in Documents.

autolycus10 said:

Well, that's never going to work is it? Except that it did!

Thanks so much for that clever suggestion; i've now got my work cut out for the next hour or so, but at least it's a fix. Any idea what's gone on here?

Great news.

It seems like possible corruption or overloading of the thumbnail cache. This is a way to refresh it.