How to delete thumbnails in Windows

On Windows operating systems, thumbs.db are hidden files that are created when using thumbnail previews for folders in File Explorer.

Sometimes thumbs.db can cause problems. if you moved content from a Windows operating system to a network shared, and then you want to delete a folder, and you end up with a “The action can’t be completed because the file is open in Windows Explorer” message referring to the “thumbs.db” file that will prevent you from removing the folder.

If to want to delete thumbs.db files to remove network folders using File Explorer on Windows use the following steps.

Enable or disable thumbs.db in Windows 10

1. Open file explorer.

2. Once file explorer open click on View tab.

3. Under View Tab, click on options and select change folder and search options.

4. When Folder options open, click on view.

5. Under files and Folders check the box "Always show icons. never thumbnails.

6. Click on Apply and OK.

Disable Thumbnail from Registry.

1. Click on start and select Run.

2. When run open type regedit and press enter.

3. When Registry editor open navigate to 

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced

4. The value for DisableThumbnailCache should be 1, if you want to disable the thumbnails caching change the value 1 to 0.