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If you are a Microsoft Windows user and use File Explorer to manage your files and folders, you might have noticed that when you use the icon view that your folders will display a thumbnail of their contents. What you have most likely noticed as well is that half of the thumbnail image is covered by the folder itself.
If you would like to see the entire thumbnail preview image on your folders, you can do so with a free third party tool. In this article, we will be showing you how to make the folder preview for pictures & files take up the entire icon in Windows.
The image below shows a typical users Pictures folder with the extra large icon view enabled. As you can see, it only shows around half of the thumbnail preview image for each folder.
To have the folder preview take up the entire icon, we will be using an app called Folder Thumbnail Fix. It’s free to use and can be downloaded here.
To use Folder Thumbnail Fix, simply download the zip file and extract it to a folder on your computer. Then all you need to do is double click the FolderThumbnailFix.exe file to run the tool. You can then choose the thumbnail style on the left to enable the full preview for your icon and if you want to change it back, you can run the tool again and choose the option on the right.
You will then see a UAC prompt asking for permission to make the changes and you will need to click on the Yes button to continue. If your account is not a local administrator, then you will need to know the name and password of one to continue.
Once you click the Yes button, the app will restart Windows Explorer so your screen will go blank and then return to normal after a few seconds.
Then you will see that your folder icons show the entire thumbnail preview rather than the partial preview.
One thing to keep in mind is that when your computer gets updated via Windows Update, you may have to run the tool again to enable the full picture view for your folders in File Explorer.
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