In Windows 11, you can enable the preview pane which will appear as a column on the right in File Explorer. The preview pane is able to show a preview of currently selected photo, video, text file, PDF file, word document, and other supported file type. This short tutorial will show you how to enable the preview pane in File Explorer on Windows 11.
Unlike thumbnail preview which has a fixed size depending on which view mode is selected, the preview pane is a resizable column which allows users to preview media in a much larger size.
Below are a few screenshots that show how it looks like to preview images, videos and text file via preview pane in File Explorer on Windows 11.
Note that video preview this way will only show a still image randomly taken from around the start of a video. It does not play the video in the preview pane.
How to preview files and medias in folder on Windows 11
To preview files, photos, videos and other supported file type directly in the folder without opening them, you need to first enable the preview pane in Windows 11 File Explorer. Follow the steps below to do so.
- In Windows 11, open File Explorer.
- On the menu bar, click on View.
- Next, hover your mouse over the Show option.
- Then, click on Preview pane.
A new pane will appear on the right side in the File Explorer window. When you select a file in the current folder, a preview will be shown in the preview pane. Now try to select/highlight any file in any folder, a preview of the selected item will be shown in the preview pane, provided if the file type is supported.
How to preview photos and videos thumbnails in File Explorer
Another method to preview media files in file explorer is by simply enabling thumbnail viewing and change the view mode to larger icons such as “Large icons” or “Extra large icons” mode.
The view mode is saved separately in each folder/directory. This means that if you change view mode in folder A, it won’t affect the view mode in folder B.
To change the view mode of a folder in File Explorer, browse to the folder, click on View on the menu bar, and then select a view mode you want to change to.
Thumbnails of files are only viewable in “Extra Large icons”, “Large icons” and “Medium icons” mode. Other view modes will only display the icon of the app used to open the file type. The extra large icons mode is the largest view mode you can set for thumbnails in Windows 11 File Explorer.
File Explorer shows app icons instead of thumbnails for images and videos
If you see app icons instead of the actual thumbnails of the image or video files, for example, all image files shows Photos app icon (the default app to open the image file) instead of the actual images as the thumbnails, here’s what you need to do.
In File Explorer, click on the triple dotted icon on the menu bar, then select Options.
In the Folder Options window, click on View tab. Under Advanced settings, uncheck the checkbox for “Always show icons, never thumbnails” option. Click Apply, then OK to save the changes.
The thumbnails of the media files should show the correct images now.
For video files that still fail to show the thumbnails but instead showing the app icon of the video player, it likely indicate that the video file type does not support displaying thumbnail in File Explorer. To solve this, you may need to install video codec packs to add supports for displaying the thumbnail of various video file types. We recommend K-lite Codec Pack by codecguide.com.
