How To Fix: OneDrive Thumbnails Not Showing on Windows 10

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Do your image files appear with a generic mountain and lake scene instead of displaying small image or thumbnails in the file explorer? And video files can be displayed with the default icon of the media player.

This has been such a frustrating problem for several months that Microsoft should have fixed it by then. What I noticed is that by default, OneDrive is set to “Save disk space and download files when you use them”, which I continue to delete to save a copy on my local computer, but if I leave it by default, the thumbnails are displayed perfectly. The problem occurs when this option is disabled and the files are stored locally (but always in a OneDrive folder – I have moved all my Windows folders (e. g. My Documents / My Photos) to OneDrive.

This article explains how to enable thumbnail previews and preview managers in File Explorer in Windows 10 and earlier.

As you can see, several people have recently complained that thumbnails of images in OneDrive folders are no longer displayed correctly in the File Explorer. The question is therefore what is causing this problem. Well, we’re not sure, but we know how to fix it, and that’s what we’re going to discuss today.

Disable Files on Demand

That’s what you have to do to control the situation. Visit the OneDrive settings by right-clicking on the icon in the taskbar. Click on More, then on Settings to open a new window.

1. Click on the Settings tab, then disable the On-Demand Files service.
2. Restart your computer, then check that the thumbnails are working correctly.
3. In most cases, this alone should solve your problem, but if it fails, try the following option.

Restore thumbnail cache memory with Disk Cleanup

The easiest way to recreate the thumbnail cache in Windows 10 is to use the Disk Cleanup tool.

1. Open the File Explorer.
2. In the left pane, click on This PC.
3. Right-click on drive C: where Windows 10 is installed and select Properties.
4. Click on the Clean Disk button.
5. Select the Thumbnail option and delete all other options.
6. Click on OK.
7. Click Delete Files to confirm and complete the task.

Check the settings of your folder

In case the thumbnails still do not appear in Windows 10, it is possible that someone or something may confuse the folder settings.

1. Open the File Explorer.
2. Click on the View tab.
3. Click Options to open Folder Options.
4. Click on the View tab.
5. Be sure to uncheck the Always display icons, never thumbnails box.
6. Click on Apply.
7. Click OK to complete the task.

CONCLUSION

OneDrive can do strange things with previews and thumbnails because some files are offline and the previews/thumbnails for them are generated by a completely separate system with a completely different software running in the cloud (otherwise, switching to thumbnail mode would not work for offline files or would cause all files to be downloaded locally, which Microsoft wanted to avoid with new OneDrive versions).

Some third-party components may also manage OneDrive folders differently, for example, not to download all files offline when you switch to thumbnail mode.

https://onedrive.uservoice.com/forums/913528-onedrive-on-the-web/suggestions/15211176-fix-issue-with-missing-photo-thumbnails-in-onedriv

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