Mac not displaying preview thumbnails

[patneligan]

Hi all,

My Macbook isn't showing thumbnails, either jpeg or png - there are a couple of files on my mac which have a preview but most do not. Even downloaded files there is no preview.

I have tried deleting the com.apple.plist file etc, updating the individual image in preview to try and generate a new thumbnail but no luck. Also this weird thing happened to my desktop after deleting the com.apple.plist (any idea what would have caused this??)

I can't find any solutions online after the above. Obviously this makes my life a living ****, as I can't preview anything before opening it.

Please help, I have a destroyed desktop now and still no way of generating previews, I'm not sure where all these files came from.





(backstory - I recently bought a refurbished Macbook 2019, after using Mac Migration to transfer old files onto the new Macbook 2019, could this have caused an issue with the thumbnails?)

Thanks for reading this, I've attached photos for your consideration

Appreciate anything!

Cheers

P

 

[MacInWin]

Try this: Right click on any of the icons. Then click on Get Info and a panel will open up. Click on the lock at the bottom of the panel and enter an Admin password. Your password will probably be all you need. There is a section labelled "Open with:" that should show some app that is associated with that type file. Typically, it's Preview. If that app is not in the window, click on the window and then find "Preview" in your Applications folder. Now, just below is a button labelled "Change all..." that, when clicked, will associate all of that type file with that application. Give it a while to run through all the files of that type to make the association. Your screenshots all say ".png" but you may have some other file types with images as well, so repeat the process for each type of file that has the generic icon instead of a preview (.jpeg, .jpg, .tiff, etc).

As for the mucked up screen, what seems to be there is that somehow you opened ALL images, or tried to. The easiest way I think to close them all is to shut down the Mac, and on the shutdown screen make sure the box to "open all windows" is UN-checked.

 

[patneligan]

Cheers Jake, really appreciate the response.

I tried this and didn't get a result. They're already associated with preview, so i'm stumped.

Wondering if anyone else has been in this position?

 

[MacInWin]

OK, one more. Open Finder, on the top of the Finder window is a circle with three dots and a down arrow. Click there and a window will open. Click View Options and another panel will open. You should find there a check box item labelled, "Show Icon Preview." Make sure that is checked an then click on the "Use as Defaults" bar.

 

[patneligan]

OK, one more. Open Finder, on the top of the Finder window is a circle with three dots and a down arrow. Click there and a window will open. Click View Options and another panel will open. You should find there a check box item labelled, "Show Icon Preview." Make sure that is checked an then click on the "Use as Defaults" bar.

Cheers for the response Jake, I appreciate it! Unfortunately that didn't work either as they were already checked.

Tricky one this...