File Explorer feels like a simple window for browsing folders, but several of its features run quiet background work every time you open it — generating image thumbnails, rendering document previews, and tracking your recently used files and folders for Quick Access. On an older PC, or a folder full of large images or videos, this can make browsing feel sluggish.

Key takeaway: Switching File Explorer from thumbnails to simple icons, and turning off Quick Access history, reduces the background work involved in browsing folders and can noticeably speed up opening large picture or video folders.

Disabling thumbnail generation

  1. Open File Explorer and click the three-dot menu (or press Alt then click View, on Windows 10) at the top.
  2. Go to Options > Change folder and search options (or Folder Options).
  3. Click the View tab.
  4. Tick "Always show icons, never thumbnails."
  5. Click Apply, then OK.

Turning off the preview pane

  1. In File Explorer, click the View menu.
  2. Find "Show" (Windows 11) or the View ribbon (Windows 10) and ensure "Preview pane" is unticked/toggled off.
  3. This stops Explorer from rendering a live preview of documents and images every time you click a file.

Disabling Quick Access history

  1. In File Explorer, go to the three-dot menu (or View ribbon) and open Options / Folder Options.
  2. On the General tab, untick "Show recently used files in Quick access" and "Show frequently used folders in Quick access."
  3. Click the Clear button nearby to wipe the existing history.
  4. Click Apply, then OK.

Tip: If you only want faster browsing in specific folders, such as a big Pictures library, you can switch just that folder's individual view to "List" rather than "Large icons," which avoids generating thumbnails without changing the setting system-wide.

Before you start: Disabling thumbnails is purely cosmetic and fully reversible, but it does mean you'll need to open image and video files individually to see their content, rather than recognising them at a glance.

When these changes matter most

These File Explorer adjustments make the biggest difference in specific, fairly common situations: browsing a folder containing hundreds or thousands of photos from a camera or phone import, opening a folder of large video files, or navigating a network drive or external hard drive over a slower connection. In each of these cases, thumbnail generation means Windows has to open and partially decode every single file just to build the small preview image, which is genuinely demanding work multiplied across every item in the folder, and it's exactly this work that switching to simple icons eliminates entirely.

For an everyday folder containing mostly documents, spreadsheets, or a modest number of files, you're unlikely to notice much difference either way, so it's entirely reasonable to leave thumbnails enabled generally and only disable them for the specific large media folders where the slowdown is actually noticeable.

A quick way to compare before and after

If you'd like to see the effect for yourself before committing to the change, pick your largest photo or video folder and time roughly how long it takes to finish loading and settle after opening it, with thumbnails enabled. Then apply the "Always show icons, never thumbnails" setting described above and open the same folder again. On an older PC with a large media folder, the difference is often immediately obvious, with the simple-icon view appearing near-instantly compared with a thumbnail view that can take several seconds, or longer, to finish rendering every image.

Frequently asked questions

Will disabling thumbnails delete my existing thumbnail cache?
No, not automatically. If you also want to reclaim the space used by cached thumbnails, run Disk Cleanup and tick the "Thumbnails" category.
Can I turn thumbnails back on for just one folder?
Yes, change that folder's view mode back to a larger icon layout — File Explorer will regenerate thumbnails for that folder alone once thumbnails are re-enabled generally.
Does clearing Quick Access history delete my actual files?
No, it only clears the shortcuts and recent-file list shown in the Quick Access section — none of your actual files or folders are touched.

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