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wait hang on, computer-knowers follow me here. has anyone found a way to force Windows 10 to generate image thumbnails in a specific folder? besides just opening them one by one? i've given up on the idea of it just... keeping up, like previous versions of windows did, but god if i could just force it to for whatever folder i'm working with it'd save me a lot of time and annoyance doing certain types of work

(UPDATE: HMMM. will try this and let you know how it goes... okay update to update this did not work. i guess it was last updated in 2018 so y'know)

further notes on this so far intractable problem below the readmore, i've been chewing on this one on my own for years lol:


-sometimes opening the file makes it generate the thumbnail but sometimes it just won't do it no matter what
-it seems unrelated to filetypes, filesizes, whether or not there's transparency, where the file came from, what drive it's on, etc.
-it also seems unrelated to whether the files are only stored locally/synced with a cloud service
-recently-saved files are more LIKELY to get a proper thumbnail but that doesn't mean they always do; when i download a bunch of new merch photos from my phone via dropbox, for example, a lot of times half of them will get thumbs and the other half won't
-nothing i do to the thumbnail cache seems to change anything. bigger thumbnail cache? nothin'. empty it? nothin'.
-checking "optimize this folder for pictures" in folder properties seems to help but not like, consistently
-the most baffling and notable exception: my vlc screenshot folder consistently generates thumbs. it's slow to catch up but like, it'll do it. if you scroll through, it (ploddingly) loads thumbnail images exactly the way you'd expect (and thank god because otherwise i'd never be able to keep it organized). in no other folder is this true!

so far i have not been able to solve this problem with any amount of googling despite MANY attempts. it seems to Just Be. Happening,


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in reply to @doodlemancy's post:

does Windows still store these in a hidden "Thumbs.db" system file? if so, maybe deleting it can force regen. (i haven't used Windows in years so i unfortunately can't come up with good instructions for how to check, but maybe someone coming across this can)

I had a very similar problem on my Win 10 machine, with the compounded difficulty of File Explorer grinding everything to a halt while attempting to generate thumbnails (even on an SSD!). It got so bad that I eventually turned the thumbnail cache off entirely, but I know that's not the answer any artist wants to hear.

A scorched earth option may be to check out another file explorer app entirely. I know for a fact that OneCommander (MS store link) generates its thumbnails independent of the system cache.

You're welcome! I hope you don't mind another couple notes here.

It can be a real tricky/messy thing to replace File Explorer insofar as, like, making it handle all the default Windows things that File Explorer does. Not to mention habit and muscle memory. But there's nothing stopping you from having a second Explorer app on the side. Some people will even tell you its a necessity if you want a decent dark mode experience.

There's another one just called Files if you want something Win 11-ish with plentiful theme options, but I don't know how it handles thumbnail generation.

i love and appreciate extra notes!!! and tbh running just like, a secondary file browser sounds great for my use case. i don't need it to always work perfectly (i've gotten by for several years with things broken the way they are) but that'd give me the ability to see what i needed to when i needed to. i'll give it a try :3c