Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

Question

How do I change my picture file back to thumbnails?

Oct 16, 2011 4:19PM PDT

How do I change the way my pictures show in my files? They use to always be thumbnails but now they show as lists. I've tried everything and they keep going back to lists. I have IE8, Windows XP SP3. Thank you!

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -
Answer
Re: thumbnails
Oct 16, 2011 4:27PM PDT

You didn't tell what "everything" is, so I assume you already did it the way it has to be done: in Windows Explorer browse to that folder and from the menu choose View>Thumbnails.

It's possible the thumbs.db file in that folder (might be a hidden file, or even a hidden operating system file) is corrupted. Just delete it then and it will be rebuild.

If it's in all folders all over the system for all Windows users (also try a new one that you create in Control Panel), and this doesn't help, it's another problem. If you really tried "everything" and it didn't help, it can't be done. Except possibly by a system restore back to when it worked, but even that is doubtful.

Kees

- Collapse -
Help: Picture File
Oct 17, 2011 1:14AM PDT

To clarify, I didn't do everything that could be done because I don't know what to do. Make sense? What I meant by "done everything" is that I tried to right click on the file itself to see what options I had and I just kept picking different ones. Needless to say I ended up with a lot of documents etc.in my picture file that didn't need to be there. And this all started when I was downloading a few pics to my file and while I had the file open, I accidently right clicked on "My Pictures" and they went from thumbnails to list and now the only way I can see the pictures is to choose thumbnails manually. There's got to be a way to get it back to way it was. This happened early September so I really wouldn't want to do a system restore.

- Collapse -
View Options
Oct 17, 2011 4:30AM PDT

I think this is just a "View Options" Setting.

If you open your My Pictures folder (this will be in Windows Explorer, note, I don't mean Internet Explorer), then look for the menu option along the top right of the window that offers different ways of listing files.

Just to be clear, in XP Windows Explorer has menu options top left called "File - Edit - View - Tools - Help".

But "View options" is not that view, it is the right hand side.

Explore those menu options and find the list of file display options.

Mark

- Collapse -
Thumbnail pictures
Oct 17, 2011 6:26AM PDT

Mark, I did what you wrote and the view setting is "thumbnail". My pictures are still showing as lists unless I

change
it to thumbnail. What can I do now?