It has been 6 months since Windows 11 was made available to the public. It sure is a good OS that has a ton of improvements in the performance and visual departments. Well, there are a ton of new features and options and some features that have been deleted from the OS altogether. Now, not everyone likes how Windows 11 looks, and that is understandable. One of the things that Windows 11 has recently added is the thumbnail previews. Now, this is useful for when you want to see what contents are inside the folder without having to open it. But, what if you didn’t like the look of your folder’s thumbnail view? There is a way to customize this aspect. Read on to know more.
By default, you will not be able to change or customize your folder’s thumbnail view. However, there is a third-party tool that helps you customize the thumbnail view of your folder. Customizing it helps to give you a good and concise idea of what is there in the folder without even having to look at the name of the folder which also eliminates the need to open the folder. So, if you are someone that wants to customize the thumbnail of their folder, this is the perfect guide for you.
How to Customize Folder Thumbnail in Windows 11
Before we get into the details of how you can customize the thumbnail, you will first have to be running on the latest version of Windows 11. If you are running on the Windows 11 22H2 update and have build number 22581 or newer, you will be able to customize the thumbnail view on your PC. Let’s get started.
- First off, you need to connect your PC to the internet and launch your favorite web browser. Now, download an app called CustomizerGod.
- The program will be in a zip file. So, once downloaded, make sure to extract the folder. Once the folder has been extracted, open it to view the contents.
- You will see 2 files and 1 folder. Open the CustomizerGod program. When the program opens, click on the general tab that is on the left-hand side.
- You will see a number of icons being displayed on the right-hand side. Now, select the icon you want to use, I pick number 18 for this article. When you hover your mouse over it, the tooltip should say ID18.
- Select the icon and now click on the three horizontal lines at the bottom right corner of the program. It will now open up a menu under the app.
- Select the Export Resources button. This basically means you are taking a backup of the icon if you might ever want to revert the icon back to the stock one.
- Now, click on the Change button. The File Explorer will now open and it will ask you to pick up the image or icon file that you wish to set as the thumbnail image for your folder.
- The File Explorer app will restart on its own.
- Sometimes, the changes might not be seen, so, in this case, simply click on the Full Clear button on the program.
- Even if it still doesn’t show up, go back to the folder you have downloaded and run the Rebuild Cache batch file.
- The selected images should now appear as the thumbnail image or your folders.
In the event that you plan to restore to thumbnail back to its default, click on the Change icon and select the icon that you initially made a backup off after you clicked on the Export Resources button. The original icon of the thumbnail will now be displayed right away.
Conclusion
And this is a simple and easy way to change the thumbnail preview of your folder on your Windows 11 PC. Do note that sometimes, you might need to restart your PC to have the changes take effect. So, what do you think about being able to change the preview of your folder’s thumbnail? Do you think it needs to be added right within Windows 11 or do you think it’s good enough to use a third-party app? Let us know about it in the comments below.
Windows 11 Guide:
