My Pictures Folder Not Showing Thumbnails

Don’t you just hate it when you go to your pictures folder or library and your picture folder is not showing thumbnail previews? This means your picture folder becomes very confusing and not being able to see the thumbnail previews for your pictures makes it extremely hard to find anything at all.

Here is a screenshot of my picture folder when the thumbnail pictures are not showing. I have Windows live Photo Gallery installed as the main picture editing program so this is the icon you can see. But I want to see a mini preview of my actual pictures.

How to show thumbnail previews in Windows

To show thumbnails in my pictures folder is the same process for Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows Seven. It is all done by accessing the Folder Options, the same place you go to show hidden files. Just a slightly different path to get there.

Windows Seven:

1. Open your picture folder by choosing pictures from the start menu.
2. You will see a menu at the top. Click on organize.
3. From this menu choose Folder and search options. See the screenshot below.

4. Folder Options will open. Go to the view tab.
5. Untick the option that says “always show icons, never thumbnails“. See the screenshot below.

6. Now simply press apply. My changes were instant but some computers might need to restart to see a difference. See the screenshot below of the same pictures in my picture folder.

Show thumbnails in Vista:

To actually see a menu in Windows vista that will let you access these options you might need to press on the ALT key. When you can see the menu, you can follow the instructions below.

Windows XP:

1. Go to the Start menu at the bottom left corner.
2. Choose My Computer.
3. Go to the menu at the top and choose Tools, then choose Folder options.
4. Choose View from the tabs at the top.
5. Untick the option that says “always show icons, never thumbnails“. See the screenshot below.

Folder Options in the Windows Control Panel

Folder options in Windows Control Panel has some very important folder and file settings there. There are so many that I am only going to mention my favourites.

1. Show or hide the blue sidebar that you see when you open any Windows dialog box. For example when you go to my computer you will see other options in the side blue menu. Like view system information, add or remove programs, change settings, and more.. To enable or disable the common task sidebar go to folder options>General Tab>Tasks>then make your choice.

2.  Show Hidden Files is another setting you can change in Windows Folder options. Here’s how to show hidden files in detail. A quick way is to go to Folder Options>View Tab>tick show hidden files.

3.  You can also choose to show files extensions the same way you show hidden files. For example you can see if a movie file is .avi or .mpeg etc.

4.  Change what file type opens with what program by choosing the file types tab. Select a file type and them click change to choose the program to open it with. For example you can make a .txt file open with notepad and a .mp3 to open with Windows Media Player.