how to display picture thumbnails windows 11

Phin2001. Take a look at these screenshots. In the first one you can see that a OneDrive connected folder can most definitely show thumbnails of photos. In the second one you can see the settings in the OPTIONS>VIEW menu. Make sure the ALWAYS SHOW ICONS, NEVER THUMBNAILS IS OFF BY DEFAULT. And then say APPLY TO FOLDERS> I'm sure this must be your issue.

IF it is not, a question I have for you is "how much RAM do you have in your machine?" It could be that a low memory situation or substandard graphics card could be at fault. But try these first.

It's all related to OneDrive WHICH I HATE. I no longer save ANYTING on my computer, it all goes to an external harddrive that OneDrive cannot touch. I previously had an issue where OneDrive put all my files on OneDrive and removed my access to them on my actual computer. What a nightmare. I figured that out, but still I save nothint to my computer. I am not a fan of Microsoft controlling everything on my computer. I am perfectly capable of managing my own files. Anyway it is fixed now. Thanks for the response.

Well, whatever. I have many clients all running OneDrive daily. I use it every day on a couple of computers at my home office. Never have had this problem. As you should know, if your hard drive dies, your computer gets stolen, your house burns down, your files will be gone. OneDrive (or any cloud provider like it) protects you from that. OneDrive has never "removed my local access to my files". If you mean that some files are stored in the cloud until you need them, then yes, it can do that, but not without your permission.

I've used MSFT software for decades and really don't understand your comment that "Microsoft controlling everything on my computer." All MSFT software gives all of us a lot of control over what is on the machine and how to run it. That's one of the beauties of it over, say, the Apple system, which I also use for certain video editing tasks.

Glad your system is working fine now. All the best.

Onedrive is an insidious nightmare even with it turned off at startup. I have the same issue with pictures and these fixes are not working. They sometimes display as an image after I open them a couple of times, sometimes not. That's today. Who knows what will work tomorrow. The hours of aggravation OneDrive has caused me are incalculable.

I just bought another portable drive with 5TB, and I think saving everything to that and not the desktop may be something worth trying.

Yes, I suggest that. I save most of my pictures to my google drive as well. I just hate OneDrive so much it's like a virus. It reminds me of the hideous nightmare that was iTunes... :)