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Can I make my thumbnail pictures load quicker when opening folders in File Explorer?

Can I make my thumbnail pictures load quicker when opening folders in File Explorer?

H
Hecchicero
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08-13-2026, 09:17 AM
#1
When I open a folder full of pictures and pick the big icon style, my fingers take too long to get there. For instance, a folder with 77 jpeg pictures (almost all smaller than 300K) takes three minutes to show up in one go. Once they appear, they stay there until I come back. Before Windows 11 Home (version 23H2), I used Windows 7 Pro. A folder like that took two or three seconds at most then. So I think the slow loading is a problem with Windows 11. I tried WinThumbsPreloader, but it doesn't work for files on an external hard drive because mine are there. Even if it worked, it wouldn't help me much since I do commercial Photoshop work and have many client folders full of nearly 10,000 pictures. So getting thumbnails to load fast in W11 like they did before would be a big help. Any tips? ___________ RESOLVED! Someone on another forum told me to make an administrator account and see if the thumbs loaded faster. They did. They loaded very fast, as they should. The problem was my normal user account, so I made a new one. I could move all my data from the bad account, but of course I can't use the same profile because that's where the weird thing happened. So I had to start over everything like it were fresh install. But at least the slow-loading thumbs problem is fixed. N.B. Tell anyone else with a similar issue to rule out a corrupted profile first because figuring that out is easy. Huge thanks to everyone who helped and gave suggestions on this topic. It means so much to me.
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H
Hecchicero
08-13-2026, 09:17 AM #1

When I open a folder full of pictures and pick the big icon style, my fingers take too long to get there. For instance, a folder with 77 jpeg pictures (almost all smaller than 300K) takes three minutes to show up in one go. Once they appear, they stay there until I come back. Before Windows 11 Home (version 23H2), I used Windows 7 Pro. A folder like that took two or three seconds at most then. So I think the slow loading is a problem with Windows 11. I tried WinThumbsPreloader, but it doesn't work for files on an external hard drive because mine are there. Even if it worked, it wouldn't help me much since I do commercial Photoshop work and have many client folders full of nearly 10,000 pictures. So getting thumbnails to load fast in W11 like they did before would be a big help. Any tips? ___________ RESOLVED! Someone on another forum told me to make an administrator account and see if the thumbs loaded faster. They did. They loaded very fast, as they should. The problem was my normal user account, so I made a new one. I could move all my data from the bad account, but of course I can't use the same profile because that's where the weird thing happened. So I had to start over everything like it were fresh install. But at least the slow-loading thumbs problem is fixed. N.B. Tell anyone else with a similar issue to rule out a corrupted profile first because figuring that out is easy. Huge thanks to everyone who helped and gave suggestions on this topic. It means so much to me.

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