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Summary: Thumbs.db is a thumbnail cache used by Windows Explorer to speed up some types of folder displays. You can delete it and prevent more from appearing.
Thumbs.db is totally safe to delete. It's an automatically generated thumbnail cache. I'll explain just what that is and I'm going to use this as an excuse to turn it off on my own machine, and show you how along the way. • Thumbnails are the "little" versions of images that Windows Explorer displays in some folder views. You can see what an image is, in miniature, presumably so you can choose the right one for whatever it is you're doing. Rather than create the thumbnail each time Windows Explorer displays the contents of a folder, it creates the thumbnails once, and then save them using thumbs.db. If the original file changes, the thumbnail would be updated, but other than that Windows Explorer doesn't need to recreate the thumbnail again, and can display the folder view more quickly the next time you take a look. Thumbs.db is normally a hidden file, so we'll need to change a setting to view those. In Windows Explorer, click on Tools, and then Folder Options. Now click on the View tab, an scroll down to Hidden Files and Folders:
"Fortunately you can turn it off with a simple
setting."
I make sure to set Show hidden files and folders, as well as Hide extensions for known file types and Hide protected operating system files. The later will give you a warning, but I prefer to see everything. Now you'll see thumbs.db in various locations. If you like, you can right click on it and click on Delete:
• Thumbs.db is a nice little optimization, but if like me you don't use the icon or image view in Windows Explorer, it's just not that useful. Fortunately you can turn it off with a simple setting. In fact, it was right above what we were looking at a moment ago:
Just check Do not cache thumbnails, and no new thumbs.db files should be created. Related:
Article 11681 | Posted July 23, 2007 |
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Just a thumbnail.. safe to delete
Posted by: George Arauz at July 23, 2007 11:20 PMThanks...i was wondering what exactly it was..
Posted by: sreejith at July 28, 2007 1:29 AMIn Vista there isn't an option to never create thumbs. So I clicked don't show them but I don't think that's right.
Posted by: Jean Hering at July 28, 2007 6:15 AMExcellent!
Posted by: Ali Darvishan at July 28, 2007 10:49 AMI have the opposite problem. The Do Not Cache box is NOT checked, but the thumbs.db are still not being created. Why not? I want to see thumbnails, but they do not appear.
Posted by: David Henriks at August 28, 2007 6:06 PMHi Leo,
I was moving a folder with many jpegs from one drive to another. The jpegs were all arranged alphabetically. When it came to the 'T's, the thumbs.db files started moving, then I got an error message. All the jpegs up to the T's moved over to the new drive and when I access the new folder, I can see thumbnails. All the jpegs after the T are stuck in the old drive, and when I open the old folder, I cannot see the thumbnails. I tried to more the remaining jepegs over, but the thumbs.db files start moving and I get the error message again. What can I do? Will deleting the thumbs.db from the old folder help? Also why can I not see thumbnails of the jpegs remaining in the old folder?
Posted by: Harold at May 22, 2008 2:37 AMTHANKS LEO: WORKED LIKE A CHARM!
Was cleaning my picture folder and this file had over 9MB so I was trying to get rid of the bigger file like this. Yet windows kept telling me it was being used by a program, but, being windows it does not tell you which one! So trying to figure out and close the thing was driving me nuts. Great job Chief!
Posted by: Oldman at June 18, 2008 12:56 AMI'm using windows vista and I cannot see the Do Not Cache thumbnail.I wsa to get rid of the thumbs.db permanently
Posted by: Kajal at June 27, 2008 10:35 PMLeo,
Posted by: Joel at October 22, 2008 1:09 PMI was trying to delete an old folder that had some pictures in it. When I went to delete it, Windows would not let me delete the Thumbs.db file. I am able to delete everything in the folder (word files and picture files) but cannot delete the Thumbs.db file. Windows keeps telling me that it cannot delete Thumbs.db files and that another program or person is using it. Only there are no other programs open and no other people logged on. I can see the hidden file, but Windows will not let me delete it. I'm stumped, can you help me? Thanks!