Windows 11: Thumbnail previews do not show on folders

Anonymous
2021-11-28T18:05:14+00:00

My folders are appearing as blank folder icons, where in Win 10 they showed thumbnail previews of the contents.

I've searched online for answers, and most appear to apply to earlier versions, and tell me to uncheck the 'icon only, no thumbnail' choice in View|Options, but that is already unchecked, so that is not the answer.

Does anyone have an actual working answer? Thanks if you do!

.....ph

Windows for home | Windows 11 | Files, folders, and storage

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments
Answer accepted by question author
Sumit 44,316 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
2022-02-17T07:04:33+00:00

The Windows 11 2022 update brings Thumbnail previews to folders.

Windows 11 2022 update now available - Microsoft Community

Was this answer helpful?

20+ people found this answer helpful.
0 comments

149 additional answers

Sort by: Newest
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2022-02-06T02:08:01+00:00

    I want to add the exact same to mmaynard23 comment. I am also a photographer and have nearly 500GB images in hierarchical folders. The upper hierarchies (year/month) etc don't have thumbnails because there no images there. But once I get to the bottom layer, I really need that thumbnail because just seeing one image from the folder immediately tells me what folder I am looking for.

    I use lightroom of course which helps but not much. But I don't want to have to start it up every time I want to go find something. But explorer is really better. Lightroom is basically the same as this broken window 11. It shows you only the individual image thumbnails but nothing at the folder level.

    Jay

    Was this answer helpful?

    3 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2022-02-05T19:24:48+00:00

    It's all good, I ment know disrespect.

    I'm an Electronic's design engineer and I need to "quick view" what is in the many folders I have. I've built 100's of equipment and need to just "glance" and not waste time hunting for the correct folder that is storing my schematics or projects. Past or present.

    All the best getting Microsoft to reinstate this command to Win11

    Was this answer helpful?

    1 person found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2022-02-05T16:40:18+00:00

    You misunderstood my reply - The person I was replying to had a low disk space issue which does cause thumbnails not to generate. The issue you are talking about is a ticket I actually opened up, which is Windows 11 no longer supporting thumbnail previews on folders. This is a huge deal for me because I'm a photographer/graphic designer and now I have 100's of folders that I literally have no idea whats inside them. For me, them removing that simple feature is actually pretty crippling and I had to roll back to windows 10.

    Was this answer helpful?

    2 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2022-02-05T14:27:13+00:00

    Really? That's the best you can do? Low Disk space??? I'm running 2TB on main M2 and 2TB on M2/ssd. Come on, it's 2022

    After an hour of going through some of the Windows 11 settings, Windows 11 does not support this issue. All other versions of Windows prior to 11 show Thumbnail "peak in or show's thumbnails" on the other outside of the Folder.

    It is not a big deal, I like that feature of "at a glance" I could see the what the folder contains. Not everything, just the last thing I put into it.

    Was this answer helpful?

    3 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments