8 Best Ways to Fix Thumbnails Not Displaying Windows 11

Thumbnail previews in Windows give you a glimpse of your files without opening them. Windows 11 may sometimes stop showing you these file thumbnails for various reasons. If a similar problem is bothering you on your Windows 11 computer, you can troubleshoot and fix it.

While the reason behind this can range from a minor glitch to corrupted system files, this guide covers all possible solutions to help you get those thumbnails back. So let’s get straight to the point.

1. Enable Thumbnails in Windows

First, you need to check the File Explorer Options in Windows to make sure thumbnails are enabled on your computer.

Stage 1: Press Windows key + S to open Windows Search, type file explorer optionsand press Enter.

Step 2: In the window below, switch to the View tab and uncheck the ‘Always show icons, never thumbnails’ box. Next, click Apply and then OK.

2. Restart Windows Explorer

File Explorer in Windows has been known to encounter errors from time to time. Thumbnails that do not show problems can also occur due to this. Fortunately, such problems are usually easily fixed when you restart File Explorer.

Stage 1: Press Ctrl + Shift + Esc on your keyboard to quickly launch the Task Manager.

Step 2: Click on More details to expand Task Manager.

Stage 3: In the Process tab, scroll down to find Windows Explorer. Select it and then press Restart.

3. Rebuild Thumbnail Cache

All thumbnail data in Windows is stored in cache format. When this data gets corrupted, Windows may not be able to load the thumbnails. To fix this, you can force Windows to rebuild this thumbnail cache.

Stage 1: Press Windows key + I to open Settings and go to Storage.

Step 2: Click on Temporary Files.

Stage 3: Scroll down to select Thumbnails and click Remove files at the top.

4. Change Default App Type

If the thumbnail doesn’t show the problem but is limited to just a few file types, it may be because of the default app set. You can try changing the default app for the file type to see if that helps.

Stage 1: Right-click the problematic file type, go to Open with and select Choose another app.

Step 2: Choose a different app and check the box that says ‘Always use this app to open files’. Click OK to save the changes.

5. Change Advanced System Settings

If you have recently tweaked any of the Windows performance options, you may not see any thumbnail previews in Windows. Here’s how to change it.

Stage 1: Open the start menu, type view advanced system settingsand press Enter.

Step 2: In the System Properties window that opens, switch to the Advanced tab and click the Settings button under Performance.

Stage 3: Select Custom in the visual effects tab and check ‘Save taskbar thumbnail previews’ and ‘Show thumbnails instead of icons’.

Finally, click Apply and OK to save the changes.

6. Restore File Explorer Options

Finally, if nothing works, you can try restoring File Explorer Options to their defaults to see if that brings back the thumbnails.

Stage 1: Open the start menu, type file explorer optionsand press Enter.

Step 2: In the window below, switch to the View tab and click the Restore Defaults button. Then click Apply and then OK.

See if the thumbnails now appear.

7. Run SFC Scan

Corrupted or missing system files can cause errors in Windows 11, including this one. Fortunately, Windows 11 is equipped with an SFC, aka System File Checker scan, which can find corrupted system files on your PC and restore them to their previous versions.

If Windows 11 cannot load the thumbnails, you can try running an SFC scan by following the steps below.

Stage 1: From the menu that appears, right-click the Start menu icon Windows Terminal (administrator).

Step 2: Type the command given below and hit Enter.

sfc /scannow

Wait for the process to complete and then restart your computer.

8. Malware Scan

If the above solutions fail to fix the thumbnails not showing in Windows, then the malware may infect your PC. To verify this, you can try running a thorough scan of your computer using Windows Defender or any of your preferred anti-virus programs.

Preview Your Files

Many of us prefer to use thumbnails instead of icons. Although Windows 11 does not display any folder thumbnails by design, it still supports file thumbnails. I hope one of the solutions above helped you get those thumbnails back.