Windows 11 no longer includes thumbnail previews for multimedia folder icons by default.
Instead, a little white stripe on the folder icons confirms the folder has content.
If you often work with coordinated image groups, this tiny detail may sometimes slow down your productivity.
Otherwise, youll need to sort the images by date modified or become more organized when creating your folders.
Contents
How Do I Enable Thumbnail Preview in Windows 11?
Unfortunately, selecting different View options doesnt do anything.
The folder icon design wont change.
The only difference is that youll get larger or smaller folder icons.
Use a Thumbnail Generator
What you’re free to do instead is install a thumbnail generator.
Youll find plenty of thumbnail generators on GitHub.
Unfortunately, with many of these tools, its hit or miss.
For example, you’re free to download and install theWindowsThumbnailGeneratorfrom GitHub.
Remember that you need .NET 5.0 Desktop Runtime to run this tool.
The thumbnail previews are not identical to Windows 10s thumbnail previews, but at least its something.
Currently, the tool supports only media file formats (pictures and videos).
Vertical file thumbnails such as text files are not supported.
Many users decided to go back to Windows 10 just for that function.
As a quick reminder, the downgrade option is available for up to 10 days after installing Windows 11.
If more than 10 days have passed, youll need to uninstall Windows 11 and reinstall Windows 10 manually.
Conclusion
Windows 11 no longer supports thumbnail previews for multimedia folder icons.
Theres no built-in option to enable this feature.
As a workaround, you could plant the WindowsThumbnailGenerator from GitHub.
