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Thumbnails not showing on Mac (Preview)

P

patneligan

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 3, 2020
12
2
Hi all,

My Macbook isn't showing thumbnails, either jpeg or png - there are a couple of files on my mac which have a preview but most do not. Even downloaded files there is no preview.

I have tried deleting the com.apple.plist file etc, updating the individual image in preview to try and generate a new thumbnail but no luck, as well as re-associating 'preview' with the files. Also this weird thing happened to my desktop after deleting the com.apple.plist (any idea what would have caused this??)

I can't find any solutions online after the above. Obviously this makes my life a living ****, as I can't preview anything before opening it.

I seem to have a destroyed desktop now and still no way of generating previews, I'm not sure where all these files came from.

(backstory - I recently bought a refurbished Macbook 2019, after using Mac Migration to transfer old files onto the new Macbook 2019, could this have caused an issue with the thumbnails?)

Thanks for reading this, I've attached photos for your consideration

Appreciate anything!

Cheers

Screenshot 2021-11-12 at 17.11.46.png



Screenshot 2021-11-12 at 17.11.20.png
Screenshot 2021-11-12 at 17.10.00.png
 
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try finder>view>show view options, and uncheck/check (or check) "show icon preview". then organize that, it's the most terriyfing thing i've ever seen.

anyway, see if that helps...
 
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No luck unfortunately, as these were already checked, I tried unchecking and restarting, etc.
 
Really can't work this out, I'm not sure what the next steps are?! Have you seen this before?! Could it be a defective refurbished macbook?
 
have you done a lot of work on this mac? anyway, you might try reinstalling the OS (from recovery). do you still have your older mac?

anyway, hard to gauge what's happening from here. maybe try calling apple. or maybe others on this forum will have ideas. good luck!
 
Hey there! I don't know if you've found a solution to this yet, but I was just having the same problem and after some troubleshooting, I got my preview icons to work again!

Basically I opened up Activity Monitor, searched for a process called "com.apple.quicklook.ThumbnailsAgent," forced quit that process, and Relaunched Finder in the Force Quit menu. Worked like a charm.

Don't know if that's helpful for you or anyone else, but just wanted to put that out there!
Screen Shot 2021-12-05 at 7.15.34 PM.png
 
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andrebob said:
Hey there! I don't know if you've found a solution to this yet, but I was just having the same problem and after some troubleshooting, I got my preview icons to work again!

Basically I opened up Activity Monitor, searched for a process called "com.apple.quicklook.ThumbnailsAgent," forced quit that process, and Relaunched Finder in the Force Quit menu. Worked like a charm.

Don't know if that's helpful for you or anyone else, but just wanted to put that out there!
View attachment 1923709
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literally made an account just to say thank you!! saved my life haha
 
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megscoll said:
literally made an account just to say thank you!! saved my life haha
Click to expand...
andrebob said:
Hey there! I don't know if you've found a solution to this yet, but I was just having the same problem and after some troubleshooting, I got my preview icons to work again!

Basically I opened up Activity Monitor, searched for a process called "com.apple.quicklook.ThumbnailsAgent," forced quit that process, and Relaunched Finder in the Force Quit menu. Worked like a charm.

Don't know if that's helpful for you or anyone else, but just wanted to put that out there!
View attachment 1923709
Click to expand...
Thank you very much, this worked.

A few months ago I had transferred data from one mac to another, upgraded the operating system as well as using design programs like sketch and photoshop.

Since then I have not been able to preview the thumbnails.
I can't believe this was the solution, thank you so much, I never would have figured it out.
 
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andrebob said:
Hey there! I don't know if you've found a solution to this yet, but I was just having the same problem and after some troubleshooting, I got my preview icons to work again!

Basically I opened up Activity Monitor, searched for a process called "com.apple.quicklook.ThumbnailsAgent," forced quit that process, and Relaunched Finder in the Force Quit menu. Worked like a charm.

Don't know if that's helpful for you or anyone else, but just wanted to put that out there!
View attachment 1923709
Click to expand...
I have this problem for long time, i even have a though that my Hard Disk is too old, work not well. I was too lazy to search this on google, till now i found this topic and solved mine. Like the buddy above, i created an account just to say thank you so much.
 
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andrebob said:
Hey there! I don't know if you've found a solution to this yet, but I was just having the same problem and after some troubleshooting, I got my preview icons to work again!

Basically I opened up Activity Monitor, searched for a process called "com.apple.quicklook.ThumbnailsAgent," forced quit that process, and Relaunched Finder in the Force Quit menu. Worked like a charm.

Don't know if that's helpful for you or anyone else, but just wanted to put that out there!
View attachment 1923709
Click to expand...
I'm one of the people who made an account just to thank you man! As a content creator, this problem has been bugging me for some time now, Merry Christmas!
 
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has anyone found a permanent fix? andrebob's fix is great but i find myself having to repeat this every now and then.
 
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This has also worked for me to get jpgs, pngs, pdfs to show their thumbnails again!! However mp4's still don't show a thumbnail, any idea on how to get them back?
 
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andrebob said:
Hey there! I don't know if you've found a solution to this yet, but I was just having the same problem and after some troubleshooting, I got my preview icons to work again!

Basically I opened up Activity Monitor, searched for a process called "com.apple.quicklook.ThumbnailsAgent," forced quit that process, and Relaunched Finder in the Force Quit menu. Worked like a charm.

Don't know if that's helpful for you or anyone else, but just wanted to put that out there!
View attachment 1923709
Click to expand...
Thank you!!
 
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andrebob said:
Hey there! I don't know if you've found a solution to this yet, but I was just having the same problem and after some troubleshooting, I got my preview icons to work again!

Basically I opened up Activity Monitor, searched for a process called "com.apple.quicklook.ThumbnailsAgent," forced quit that process, and Relaunched Finder in the Force Quit menu. Worked like a charm.

Don't know if that's helpful for you or anyone else, but just wanted to put that out there!
View attachment 1923709
Click to expand...
Thank you for this!! I can now see thumbnails in finder, however they are still not showing on my actual desktop. Is there a way around this?
 
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Y'all are so sweet! I totally forgot I had posted this last month and came back to this flood of happy comments. Glad it was a helpful tip. Best to you all :)
 
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Hkc361 said:
Thank you for this!! I can now see thumbnails in finder, however they are still not showing on my actual desktop. Is there a way around this?
Click to expand...
Have you checked your view options (⌘ + J) on your desktop? "Show Icon Preview" should be checked. Your desktop might have a different preference than the rest of your directory in Finder. Also try relaunching your Finder.
 
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andrebob said:
Hey there! I don't know if you've found a solution to this yet, but I was just having the same problem and after some troubleshooting, I got my preview icons to work again!

Basically I opened up Activity Monitor, searched for a process called "com.apple.quicklook.ThumbnailsAgent," forced quit that process, and Relaunched Finder in the Force Quit menu. Worked like a charm.

Don't know if that's helpful for you or anyone else, but just wanted to put that out there!
View attachment 1923709
Click to expand...

It worked for me. After months of trying to find solution to this and your post has solved my issues. I just created an account to say; THANK YOU SO MUCH!
 
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andrebob said:
Hey there! I don't know if you've found a solution to this yet, but I was just having the same problem and after some troubleshooting, I got my preview icons to work again!

Basically I opened up Activity Monitor, searched for a process called "com.apple.quicklook.ThumbnailsAgent," forced quit that process, and Relaunched Finder in the Force Quit menu. Worked like a charm.

Don't know if that's helpful for you or anyone else, but just wanted to put that out there!
View attachment 1923709
Click to expand...
Made an account just to say thanks! It worked for me
 
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I've read it all but still it won't work for me. Tried all the above tricks. Nada.
My guess - I moved all my files to Dropbox rather than on my Mac M1. Could this be the reason for all preview icons not showing in the finder?
 
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