How to remove arrows on PDF/DOCX icons on Desktop?

[hp79]

I don't know what to call this, but it's the PDF and DOCX files on my desktop that shows left and right arrows when I hover my mouse over them.

It's annoying, and I wan't to disable this useless feature.

It's useless to me because I'm not getting any useful information from the tiny thumbnail by flipping the pages, and I have no plan to make them any larger. Does it serve any other purpose that I'm not aware of? I'm a long time Windows user, and switched over to OSX in November 2013.

Screen capture attached.

 

[Intell]

Those cannot be disabled.

 

[fisherking]

i thought it showed them as being more than one page.
altho, actually, doesn't seem to do that here...

anyone else?

 

[Hustler1337]

They can be disabled.

With the folder concerned opened in Finder, click on View -> Show View Options (⌘J). Uncheck the Show Icon Preview option. You should no longer see icon previews in Icon, List, and Column views.

Depending on which 'view' style you have, you can click on 'Use as Defaults' to make the settings the default settings for that folder.

Bear in mind that this will not just remove the arrows, but also stop any preview of the content of the file and instead show it's file type icon just like you get in Windows. Let me know if this was what you wanted.

 

[hp79]

They can be disabled.

With the folder concerned opened in Finder, click on View -> Show View Options (⌘J). Uncheck the Show Icon Preview option. You should no longer see icon previews in Icon, List, and Column views.

Depending on which 'view' style you have, you can click on 'Use as Defaults' to make the settings the default settings for that folder.

Bear in mind that this will not just remove the arrows, but also stop any preview of the content of the file and instead show it's file type icon just like you get in Windows. Let me know if this was what you wanted.

Thanks for your suggestion. I tried your instruction, it disabled Preview in the Finder window, but not on the files on Desktop screen itself. By the way, Windows also has Preview mode set as default, so you can see thumbnails of photos and videos, but not text or PDF or DOCx. Preview of PDF/DOCx in a icon size is useless.

I like the Preview enabled, but I hate those useless left and right arrows. I mean, it's not about your eye sight to make them useful. Even in a high resolution screen like Retina display, they are still useless because you can't really read anything from it. Unless I increase the icons to a stupid big super size, I don't see why the arrows are even there. I can see how the paragraphs looks like, but that's about it.

 

[fisherking]

Thanks for your suggestion. I tried your instruction, it disabled Preview in the Finder window, but not on the files on Desktop screen itself. By the way, Windows also has Preview mode set as default, so you can see thumbnails of photos and videos, but not text or PDF or DOCx. Preview of PDF/DOCx in a icon size is useless.

I like the Preview enabled, but I hate those useless left and right arrows. I mean, it's not about your eye sight to make them useful. Even in a high resolution screen like Retina display, they are still useless because you can't really read anything from it. Unless I increase the icons to a stupid big super size, I don't see why the arrows are even there. I can see how the paragraphs looks like, but that's about it.

if nothing else, they show you that the document is more than one page...

 

[swiftaw]

Right click on the icon and select "Show View Options". Deselect Show Icon Preview.

 

[Hustler1337]

Thanks for your suggestion. I tried your instruction, it disabled Preview in the Finder window, but not on the files on Desktop screen itself. By the way, Windows also has Preview mode set as default, so you can see thumbnails of photos and videos, but not text or PDF or DOCx. Preview of PDF/DOCx in a icon size is useless.

I like the Preview enabled, but I hate those useless left and right arrows. I mean, it's not about your eye sight to make them useful. Even in a high resolution screen like Retina display, they are still useless because you can't really read anything from it. Unless I increase the icons to a stupid big super size, I don't see why the arrows are even there. I can see how the paragraphs looks like, but that's about it.

It should also disable the preview of files on the Desktop as well. An easier way on the desktop is to right click on the desktop background and click on "Show View Options". Then uncheck "Show icon preview" as stated earlier.

I agree with you on the arrows serving no real purpose other than telling you that there's more than one page on the document because it's very difficult to see anything other than a brief outline of the document layout. It's only when you click on the spacebar that previewing the document with Quick Look without actually opening it that it becomes useful.

 

[edmechem]

I don't know what to call this, but it's the PDF and DOCX files on my desktop that shows left and right arrows when I hover my mouse over them.

It's annoying, and I wan't to disable this useless feature.

It's useless to me because I'm not getting any useful information from the tiny thumbnail by flipping the pages, and I have no plan to make them any larger. Does it serve any other purpose that I'm not aware of? I'm a long time Windows user, and switched over to OSX in November 2013.

Screen capture attached.

Late to this party. But, yeah; these can easily be disabled.

The hidden setting that controls this, from https://ss64.com/osx/syntax-defaults.html among other places, is known as "Minimum size for playable previews", i.e.

defaults write com.apple.finder QLInlinePreviewMinimumSupportedSize -integer

I've got mine set to 264, so in icon view with icon size of 256 x 256 or smaller, these arrows aren't present. I agree that they're annoying and almost always useless. I didn't set this number to 514 or something (largest icon size is 512 x 512), because I figured... if I'm in icon view at some large size, I actually might want to see these. But yeah, almost always, I don't.

 

[effgee]

And I am way, waaaaaay later to the same part but wanted to express my gratitude to edmechem above all the same. That tip was brilliant, and ss64.com is an awesome resource. Thanks much for posting this!

 

[jwolf6589]

Late to this party. But, yeah; these can easily be disabled.

The hidden setting that controls this, from https://ss64.com/osx/syntax-defaults.html among other places, is known as "Minimum size for playable previews", i.e.

defaults write com.apple.finder QLInlinePreviewMinimumSupportedSize -integer

I've got mine set to 264, so in icon view with icon size of 256 x 256 or smaller, these arrows aren't present. I agree that they're annoying and almost always useless. I didn't set this number to 514 or something (largest icon size is 512 x 512), because I figured... if I'm in icon view at some large size, I actually might want to see these. But yeah, almost always, I don't.

How do I enable the arrows? Mine were on and then turned off for some reason and I want them back.

 

[effgee]

Just run the command you quoted with the default value of "64" where it says "integer"

$ defaults write com.apple.finder QLInlinePreviewMinimumSupportedSize -64