Don't Show Icon Previews

I've recently upgraded to Snow Leopard from Tiger. Everything has been a little glitchy, but the one thing that is truly annoying me is the Finder will always show Icon Previews. Every time I log in and open a Finder window, I have to go thru the View Options and uncheck Show Icon Previews. The next day, I have to do the same thing, because the Finder does not remember that setting.
I've tried Option-clicking and Command-clicking the check box, but it hasn't made a difference.
Does anyone have any suggestions as to how I can get the Finder to remember that I don't want to see Icon Previews in Finder windows?
A preemptive thanks.

Baltwo, per your suggestion:
I created a new administrator account, logged in, opened a new Finder window, hit command-J, unchecked Show Icon Preview, closed the View Options window, closed the Finder window, then logged out. I logged back into the new account and the settings had stuck. (Yea!?) I did the whole routine with my own account and the settings were reset, with Show Icon Preview checked. Hmm.
So I guess it's some glitch in my user account. Any ideas how to fix it? I'm not really excited about creating a new user and having to set up all the preferences and whatnot, but I guess it might be weighing that inconvenience against the annoyance of the Icon Previews.

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'show icon preview' not working, Icon preview no longer visible

I have lots of folders full of jpg files. The preview icon do longer appears and all i get is the genetic icon. This happened randomly yesterday and I don't know how to fix it. I have the 'Show Icon Preview' enabled yet I only get the generic icon. Any ideas why? (OS X 10.5.8). I have tried a restart, permissions fix, and reindexed my hard drive with spotlight. No luck. Please help!
Simply: I don't know how to get the preview back even after selecting the "show icon preview" box on the options. HELP!

There probably are some hidden probable causes for this behavior;
while not knowing if you perform any general maintenance in a
preventative way for your OS X system, some of the suggestions
I could provide here may mean little or nothing to some users, or
to others, who have done them for years as a matter of course, to
suggest those could be the same as an insult; or a laughing matter.
You could try rather basic things, a few steps above 'repair disk
permissions' in Disk Utility. That's been around since OS 10.1.5.
And it has a place among other steps one can do to help out.
Sometimes, you can start up into SafeBoot mode; then choose to
run Disk Utility, and repair disk permissions. When done, quit D.U.
and restart the computer normally. - Other repairs to the system may
be performed by booting up from the OS X installer and run Disk
Utility from the menu drop-down options in the main Installer window.
You can repair disk, verify disk (SMART verify), repair disk permissions
and verify disk permissions. Plus other aspects of Disk utility that are
tools to set up partitions and other things beyond a basic simple fix.
SafeBoot mode, basic:
+Hold the Shift key down on start-up, keep holding it until you get a login+
+screen, enter admin password, then when desktop appears, you can+
+use GO in menu bar to find Utilities folder, and run Disk Utility's repair+
+disk permissions. When done, quit the Utility and restart.+
There probably may be some .plist file controlling the view of image icons
and since I haven't followed that issue (experienced it in the past, forgot
what I did to fix it) I am not sure what preference file to suggest trashing.
But you can be very selective, when knowledgeable, and do that. Then,
later on, when you restart the computer the default setting would return.
You could set that to whatever (if not the default) & that may fix the matter.
{One preference file location that probably would contain your user account's
.plists would be in the Macintosh HD> User folder> Library> Preferences>
...Now, the correct one among these becomes important. There is a desktop
plist, a finder plist, and others. Since each user in a Mac with their own setup
account can change these, yours should be in your booted user account.
However, some time has passed since this kind of issue occurred and I didn't
need to delete a .plist to resolve it. Yet that may be a short fix.}
These issues usually have a cause; sometimes it may be due to other items
not quite right in the user interface and symptoms of that sometimes show up
in odd places and they may not be directly related. Subtle and dismissed, a
few of those quirks are not show stoppers in OS X. A 'safeboot' & disk utility
may resolve some; to find a correct .plist preference file & trash it may, too.
If the computer's hard disk drive is getting full of content you have added, it
may be time to archive image libraries and/or music libraries off the Mac's
internal hard disk drive and then thin out content on the computer. That can
help a computer run better. Damage to data on the computer drive may be
a result (or outright is) of over-filling the hard disk drive. Overwriting content
is sometimes an issue; it could be subtle, too, for awhile. Checked into it?
For some preventative maintenance chores, I have and use OnyX which is
a free running utility tool (which I refer to as a utility interface tool) that pulls
the strings in OS X that some users would not think of the Terminal utility
ways of making them work; this gives you a GUI format, an application to
run various sets of items rather easily. If done without concern, these tools
can do bad things (same as booted Disk Utility, drastic tools are onboard.)
OnyX is a free-running downloadable app from Titanium Software; and since
I only use it maybe once every several months (or sooner if bored or if active
in using one computer more than usual) & have it run in Automation selection
having chosen all the check-box choices, so it will do those. I also have OnyX
set in its preferences, to restart the computer after it is done running those.
This may do more than you need in this selection of Automation. I have never
had any issues with this; but some preference choices system-wide may need
to be set back to your choice, as it can be also set to wipe caches or other old
logs and misc stuff. A few settings won't make much different to default from.
Usually, I prefer not to shut off or restart my computer until such time as when
Activity Monitor shows some issue with virtual memory and swap files or space
on the hard drive being excessively allocated as Virtual Memory. At times, a
restart may be required. My Mac can run a few months without restart, but it is
left to sleep or I will put it to sleep. Even so, some basic background OS X items
may not automatically run as they should. You can force the maintenance cycles.
If the 'show icon preview' does not work even after performing catch-up maintenace
and including OnyX, SafeBoot, and others; and if you have at least 30% of the total
hard disk drive capacity open or free from use, then you may have to consider a few
other ideas. (Removing the plist file may be the only thing you'd need do.) Another
idea in a few cases of more severe odd behavior, and if you updated your Leopard
10.5 to your current/last level through use of the Delta or small update file, would be
to get the larger Combo (last version) and after repairing disk permissions, install it
over the similar system in your computer. 10.5.8 over 10.5.8. Then restart and go in
and repair disk permissions again. Perhaps later on, safeboot and do them.
That much effort is seldom needed. Preventative maintenance and care to not over-
fill the hard disk drive, helps to almost never see such a problem in your Mac OS X.
{In a few cases, people who have upgraded from an earlier OS X version (Tiger-to-
Leopard, for example) and had a problem, may still have a similar problem later. So
it is best to fix issues and not hope to upgrade over them. Unless it is a totally new
bare-bones secure zero-overwritten drive, correct partition map, reformat, new install.
Then, there should be no doubt if there was an odd problem in the software, only.}
Hopefully some of this late night rambling may be of some help.
+Answering a question in these forums can be like replying to a+
+statement thus, "why won't my car go?" And an answer starts+
+out by asking dozens of questions about the car itself and the+
+status of the car, if it has fuel, tires, if it's been in a flood, or if+
+there is an engine, fuel, battery... At least I know yours runs!+
Good luck & happy computing!

Prev "previewed" files in 10.6 dont scale via "show icon preview" function

1. use DropIcon 3.0.2 under a lower version of OSX than 10.6
2. import your "preview built" files into 10.6 (notice also that files that have a preview built into them are larger in file size than the same file which doesnt have it)
3. scale a folder full of images to for example - 180 px squared
4. notice that 10.6 cant build a new preview based on the new size
how to "show icon preview" files which have been previously "preview built" by apps like DropIcon 3.0.2 ?
This would be very useful....
TIA

You may not think of icons as 512x512, but Apple now does. The transition started in Leopard, and is now complete--pretty much all of Apple's icons will now go to 512pixels in the various and sundry places they are displayed, from window views for Icon, CoverFlow, and the preview pane of Column view, to the GetInfo preview, to Spotlight results displayed in icon view.
As to your own custom thumbnails: if, as mentioned previously, you used Photoshop with the option to save a custom thumbnail, or you used a dedicated program to save a custom thumbnail for an image file, then those custom thumbnails were added to the image file as a resource fork. WAY back such custom thumbnails were 32x32 pixels. In the more recent past they were 128x128. Indeed, that is still the size used by Photoshop when it adds a custom thumb.
If the Finder is displaying any view that shows a preview of the file it will either display the custom thumb that is part of the file, if one is present, or draw its own preview if no custom thumb is embedded in the file. And if it uses the custom thumbs they will NOT scale upwards in any pretty way, beyond whatever their original size was--they'll just get pixalated. The advantage, if you don't need to be able to scale up to 512, is that the display of a folder full of images with custom thumbs is instantaneous, while a folder full of images without custom thumbs may take a noticeable amount of time for all of the previews to be drawn (you can see them appearing as you scroll the folder). The disadvantage to custom thumbs, as you have discovered, is that they don't scale well. If you want to be able to scale the preview thumbnails in various Finder views, you need to remove the custom thumbnails you have added, either via the save option in Photoshop, or with your third party program. You can't tell Finder to ignore them: if they are present Finder assumes you want it to use them, rather than its own preview function.
Francine
Francine
Schwieder

Unchecked show icon preview but still showed icon preeviews / ikon preview (thumbnail) can not disable,

Systems and Network
2 iMac Intel i5, 8 GB Ram, 1 TB SATA HDD, Mountain Lion (10.8.5 or 10.8.4 )
1 iMac Snow Leopard (10.6.8)
1 Mac pro Intel Xeon, 6 GB Ram, 1 TB HDD, Tiger (10.4.11)
A few power PC G4 Tiger (10.4.11)
1 Linux SME Server 7.5 (Samba Server)
We are works on the Server(Linux). There ara many pictures and Text Files (tif, jpeg, rtf, doc, txt etc.) in server folders.
     On the 2 iMac (Mountain Lion)
          Text files in the folder have viewed normal(optimum) time. But Pictures in the folder have viewed very slow and very long time.Because showing pictures icon (show icon preview) very slow on the Mountain Lion. We tried List View/ColumnView.We have waited very long time(for pictures in the folder) when we selected a folder every time.
          We unchecked show icon preview but still showed icon previews, icon preview (thumbnail) can not disable, We tried "Finder preferences", "View > Show View Options > Show icon preview(unchecked)" and "Show icon column(unchecked)" but still "Show icon preview(checked)" and "Show icon column(checked)"
     On the Power PC G4, Mac pro or iMac (Leopar/snow Leopar or Tiger)
          Everythings ok. There isn't any problem. Text files and Pictures in the folder have viewed normal(optimum) time
This problem only on the Mountain Lion, on the other OS (Leopar/snow Leopar or Tiger) no problem.
How to resolve this problem?
Best Regards

Good news: I found a solution.
Start iTunes, remove all your voice memos from your library (back them up if you need them), quit iTunes. Restart Finder. Done. I hope that helps!

Show icon preview glitch

Hi there...this is puzzling me. Just recently any MS word file icons located on my desktop changed to blank icons.
I then discovered that in order to show the icon previews for MS Word .doc and other files, I need to un-check "show icon preview" in the view options menu.
But this is odd, because it's the reverse of what you'd expect. Normally, you'd check "show icon preview" to see the preview.
Has anyone else experienced this? What might have caused it? (I recently downloaded a .doc containing macros, so I'm concerned this might be a security issue)

But you're not getting a preview when you uncheck that box. You're getting the MS Word document icon, which is the same for all .doc files, no matter what the contents. When you show previews, you're actually getting previews... problem is that a preview of a document that's mostly plain text, shrunk down to icon size, doesn't look like much. But you're getting what you asked for at the moment.

Show icon preview in finder problem

the other day when i was using the cover flow in finder to go through old photos finder stopped showing the icon previews for all my photos. toggling the option to show the icon preview doesn't seem to be doing, any idea what might've happened?

2point5 wrote:
If I can hazard a guess it's possibly a memory availability issue given that it has to generate a thumbnail of the images on the fly and may be struggling as you navigate through more and more images.
I've had this same problem for a long time. I thought it must be either a memory or free disk space availability issue because in my case it appears to be brought on by Photoshop CS3. After i use Photoshop for a little while, new icon previews stop being generated entirely, as if they've been switched off.
I now have 7 GB of RAM, with Photoshop capped at 72%. I've tried reducing that percentage and i've moved all Photoshop scratch files to other drives with no change.
I used to be short of disk space on my main drive and i thought it might be a virtual memory issue. But i currently have 32 GB available.
*I bring previews back by using Force Quit to relaunch the Finder.*
Then i have to move all the Finder windows back to the "Spaces" i had them in. 10 minutes later they're gone again.
!http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/5186/scottdartve1.png!

Macbook pro won't show icon previews

Hey there Mac'cers,
Okay so ...at first I could see all my icons/thumbnails etc just fine and when i clicked on them they turned blue...well now I cannot see the preview of the thumbnails/icons and also when i click on them it is grey now not blue and I haven't touched any settings??
HELP!...images are all still there and openable just not showing thumbnails and is rather annoying...
Many thanks
Vanessa...

Hi chuckita,
Welcome to the Apple Support Communities!
I understand that you would like to use your MacBook Pro to mirror to your Apple TV, but you do not see the AirPlay icon. In this situation, I would recommend using the attached article to verify that your MacBook Pro is supported and how to set up AirPlay Mirroring. Please let me know if you continue to have and issue and what steps aren’t working as expected.
About AirPlay Mirroring in OS X - Apple Support
Best regards,
Joe

Thumbnails don't show in Preview 8.0 app

Hello,
I use Preview 8.0 as supplied on my new 13" Macbook Air (Yosemite 10.10.2). When I go to View > Thumbnails, the left-side column where the thumbnails should go is revealed, but it is empty. Wondering if anyone can recommend a solution to get these to show up so I can reorder pages, etc.
Thanks in advance!

The warranty entitles you to complimentary phone support for the first 90 days of ownership.

Form Guides don't show in Preview

I am trying to learn how to create form guides and have found that when I click the preview button, nothing but a blank template of the form guide appears. None of the text or graphics I have added appear. Can anyone provide any solutions?
I am working with ES2.

The warranty entitles you to complimentary phone support for the first 90 days of ownership.

Generic Icons Everywhere, EXCEPT the trash?? Trash shows doc preview.

For some reason my new 20"iMac with 10.5.1 will not show the document preview as it's icon on the desktop, or in any normal folder. This stinks cause it's a neat feature that I would really like to use...
However, if I move the files to the trash, live icon preview works just fine?!?! The link below is a pic of the situation at hand - anyone have any ideas?
http://www.stormcell.com/desktop.png

You need to go to View Options and click on the little box next to "Show Icon Preview" then click to Use As Defaults. Then click "Always Open In * View* at the top and that folder will be fixed with those preferences.
Then keep in mind that a lot of file types will not show previews. Do a Google search for Quick Look plugins to expand your options, if it works in Quick Look it should also work in icon previews. And even then some files that are supposed to show them won't, it's a bit finicky. But just select the file and hit the space bar to see it in QL
If you try Cover Flow it will have a different set of files it will preview. A TIFF file will preview in Quick Look and in icon view, but will show up in Cover Flow as the generic app icon that saved it.

Icon Preview is not shown for mp3 files in finder

Hi. Recently I noticed icons of mp3 files are no longer as used to be in finder. Previously I had a dark music note icon and when i hover my mouse there was a play button. Now I only see itunes icon in mp3 files. "Show Icon Preview" option is enabled, and i can preview image and pdf files in finder. But something happened to the mp3 files. It is very annoying. Please guide me to get back the good old icon preview for mp3 files.

Displaying icons as previews of files
In Finder windows and on the desktop, the icons for files can appear as thumbnail previews of the file contents. For example, instead of seeing a generic icon for a PDF file, you can see a miniature version of what’s in the PDF file. If you “hover” over the icon for a movie or sound file, you’ll see a Play button, which you can click to view the movie or hear the sound. (If you don’t see a Play button, enlarge the icon.)
NOTE:If you’re using Cover Flow view, you’re already previewing files and don’t need to change any settings.
To display icons as previews:
To work with icons in a Finder window, click the Finder icon in the Dock.To work with icons on the desktop (the background area of your screen), click the desktop.
If you’re working with icons in a Finder window, click one of the View buttons in the toolbar to select icon, list, or column view.
Choose View > Show View Options.
Select “Show icon preview.”
If you’re working in a Finder window, you can also set the following options, depending on which view you’re using:
In Icon view: Use the “Icon size” slider to adjust the size of the preview image.
In List view: Click one of the two “Icon size” buttons.
In Column view: To see a larger preview in the adjacent column, select “Show preview column.”
NOTE:The Finder may not be able to show a preview for some files.
Another way to get a quick preview is to select one or more images, and then click the Quick Look (eye) button in the Finder window toolbar, or press the Space bar.
Related Topics
Finder preferences
Previewing files with Quick Look

Finder icon previews slowing finder

I work with a lot of pdf files, and as finder shows pdf icons as a preview of the first page it can take a long time before the content of a folder stabilises itself, ie: updates all icons with a preview of its content.
Its particularly frustrating if you are renaming a file, as you have to wait for all the contents within the folder to finish updating otherwise it keeps skipping off the desired file.
Is there any way of getting the finder to just show the generic icon of a file, rather than the preview? It would speed up the system no end.

Thumbnails don't slow down the Finder. The problem is in the view style you are using. The bug where you loose your file rename session when the thumbnails draw is a known bug in List View that has been around for a couple OS releases, it has only been made more prominant with the addition of thumbnails in List View in Leopard.
The solution is either switch to Icon or Column View, or while in List View press Command-J and uncheck the "Show Icon Previews" checkbox. The click the "Use As Defaults" button.
Hope that helps.

Image Icon previews

For some reason, in the past week, Finder seems to have lost the ability to show me image previews via the Icon view option.
I have used this feature without a problem since the day I got my new MacBook Pro (17' model of the latest version). In the past when I've connected my camera (Nikon D40) I have been able to view all of the files though finder, and have had the option of seeing an image preview of every picture by switching to icon view. Now, however, I can only see a preview when in Columns mode with a single image selected. Even Coverflow won't show me anything besides the stock JPEG icon.
The problem persists even after the files are exported onto my computer, and even old images, which I know have shown me previews before in Icon and Coverflow modes, simply show up with JPEG logo now.
This is an enormous pain. I work at a newspaper and I deal with tons of pictures on a daily basis. Being able to see those icon previews was a huge selling point for my machine.

Two things to try:
1. Delete the Finder's preference file. It is here:
"/Users/yourname/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist"
After you delete it, open a window with graphic files, and re-do the Show Icon Preview and click the Use as Default button.
2. Try things in your test account. Don't have one? You should, it is very useful for testing things like this and takes almost no space. Go to System Prefs->Accounts, create a new account and give it Admin privileges. Log in to the test account and see if everything works as normal. If so then there is a problem with your regular account. If they still aren't right, then there is a system level problem and, depending on what it is, the easiest solution might be to restore from your Time Machine backup or do an archive and install of the system.
Francine
Francine
Schwieder

Can icon previews be turned off?

Can the icon previews that show up in the Finder be turned off? I find it a bit disorientating. I'd rather just see a generic PDF icon, Word icon, etc...
Any ideas? I know this can be done on a per-folder basis using the "View options" but can I make a global change somehow?
Ryan

Activate the Finder then select Show View Options from the View menu. Uncheck the option to show icon preview. For the Desktop do the same thing only first click on the Desktop.

No Icon Previews in Finder

Hi
Something has killed Icon previews in Finder. 'Show Icon Preview' is selected in 'Show View Options'.
I found elsewhere here that some of Rogue Amoeba's 'Audio Hijack Pro' plugins can cause this issue so I uninstalled the whole package after unsuccessfully trying to upgrade the plugins (which have now been fixed). Uninstalling the lot and rebooting did not help.
I've binned ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.desktop.plist & com.apple.finder.plist and rebooted. This did not help.
I've also binned com.apple.QuickLook.thumbnailcache from /private/var/folders/somename/someothername/-Caches-
This has not fixed the problem. After rebooting, the quicklook thumbnail cache is never recreated.
Before my loss of icon previews I had multiple instances of quicklookd crashes. This no longer happens since removing the Rogue Amoeba plugins but I have many
'[QL] Can't get server port for <QLServer com.apple.quicklook>: Unknown service name' logs in the console.
I've also noticed that 'Quicklook Helper' is never running (randomly viewed from activity monitor), is this what generates Icon Previews in SL?
Any help Appreciated
Cheers - Mark

Wish I could offer help, but mine just started doing this as well. Mine occurred after a system failure (thanks to Windoze and Parallels) and a complete restore from Time Capsule/Time Machine. So far the only other odd thing I've noticed is my Trade Gothic fonts got corrupted.
I don't have Audio Hijack Pro installed.

Don't Show Icon Previews

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