Thumbnails Folder: What It Is and How to Delete It

Thumbnails are basically a copy of the photos or images on your cell phone, but in miniature size. Precisely the English term "thumbnails» translates to Spanish as «miniature».

The idea of ​​the thumbnail is to give you a preview of a piece of content, whether it's a photo, an image or even a video. Since it's small in size and even cropped from the original image, it loads faster.

For example, these thumbnails are what you see when you open an app like Gallery. The thumbnail for each image on your device is automatically generated and stored in a cache or temporary memory.

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What is the DCIM folder?

DCIM is an abbreviation for Digital Camera Images and is the name of a folder that is automatically created on memory cards inside most digital cameras, as well as most mobile phones where the user can capture and store photographs.

The DCIM folder contains digital photos taken or stored on the device. However, the folder may also contain various other files associated with accessing and viewing the images within the DCIM folder, including images that were previously stored in it.

The subfolder .thumbnails It is automatically generated inside the DCIM folder on a mobile phone with Android by default

Thumbnail folder inside DCIM folder of Android devices

The .Thumbnails folder is hidden from the normal user by default, and usually the '.' at the beginning of the folder name within Android indicates that it is hidden. It is possible to view the folder using a file manager. Your phone may contain one by default, or you can download one from the Play Store.

How to view the contents of the DCIM .Thumbnails folder

You may need to select the option 'Show hidden files' within the manager. However, when you navigate to the DCIM folder on the device, the file manager will display the contents of that folder, which will include the folder named .Thumbnails.

By accessing the .Thumbnails folder, you can see the images it contains. Those images will be all the ones displayed within the Photo gallery from the device. Each image consists of a smaller version of all the images, including those that have been subsequently deleted, viewed within the photo gallery.

The images also display a file name and a date/time stamp that relates to the point of storage (modification date) of the original image, meaning that the creation date of an image can be identified from the thumbnail copy even if the original full-size version is no longer present.

This allows those images to be quickly loaded within the photo gallery when the user accesses them again. As the .Thumbnails folder retains smaller versions of all the images examined within the 'Photos' directory, it can often contain evidence that the user has deleted them, and can also take up a large amount of space on a phone.

Different versions of Android also contain a thumbnail data file which can also contain a significant amount of image data and reside within the .Thumbnails folder.

Deleting data inside the .Thumbnails folder

It is possible to select the .Thumbnails folder and delete it from the device, which will remove any images contained within it and can save a significant amount of device space. However, doing this can cause issues, including the current images no longer being displayed as thumbnails in the photo gallery. Alternatively, any image within the gallery of photos will be displayed as thumbnails again when accessed, causing them to regenerate within the .thumbnails gallery.

Therefore, an alternative could be to install a good cache cleaning app that will automatically identify which of the images inside the Thumbnails directory is causing problems and remove it from the device, instead of simply deleting them all, which can cause operational issues. To do this you will need to install a file explorer and then follow the steps below:

• Step 1: In the file explorer, open the directory «DCIM«.
• Step 2: inside the folder «DCIM«, delete files or folders that have the name .thumbnails. If it does not appear, you may need to enable the «Show hidden files» in the file browser settings.

It is possible that the thumbnails are located in both the internal memory and the external micro SD storage of the phone. In that case, the procedure must be repeated in both locations.

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Alternative method

Thumbnails are usually packed into a file with a name like this: .thumbdata1-1234567890. This file is usually located in the /DCIM/.thumbnails directory. The trick is to replace this file with another one, which can be an empty file or a file of another nature (for example, some file .gif or .bak).

This file must be renamed and given the same name .thumbdata1-1234567890 previous. Also, you must place it in the same directory /DCIM/.thumbnails, replacing the original file.

There may be more than one file .thumbdata1-1234567890 In the address book /DCIM/.thumbnailsIn this case, you need to know the size of the file and choose the largest one. If both are of considerable size, you should do the same for both.

How to prevent the thumbnail folder from appearing again

While the content of .Thumbnails allows the contents of the folder Photos to be displayed quickly and efficiently, the user may not want the installation to return and the space associated with it to be used for other data. If the user creates a file called .thumbnails, the device should not automatically recreate a new directory .Thumbnails nor any of the images it contains.

Can you remove Thumbnail?

It is perfectly possible to remove Thumbnails on Android. By doing this, you can temporarily free up some storage space on your device. Similarly, you can prevent automatic thumbnail generation from taking up storage again.

What happens if I delete thumbnails?

Since thumbnails are just a representation of the images, It is completely harmless to remove themHowever, it is best to remove these images using a specially designed application. The manual method may not have the same result in all cases.

How to enable “Thumbnail View” for folders in Windows Explorer?

Please refer to the following procedure:

• Step 1: Click on [Home] -> [Programs] -> [Explorer of Windows].
• Step 2: in the window [Windows Explorer], right-click on the folder for which you want to enable «Thumbnail view» and then select [Properties].
• Step 3: in the tab [General admission], make sure that the option [Enable thumbnail view] is checked and then click [Accept].
• Step 4: in the window [Windows Explorer], press the [ keyF5] to update and open the folder for which [Thumbnail view] is enabled, and then click [Miniatures] in the menu [View].

Notes

These are some notes related to the folder Thumbnails:

• Yeah [Thumbnails] is not in the menu [View], click another folder once, and then open the folder that has thumbnail view enabled again.
• This setting is enabled even after restarting Windows. You can always change the view in the folder for which the [Thumbnail view].
• [Thumbnails] in the menu [View] appears only in the folder for which [ is enabledThumbnail View].
• The following are some of the standard file types that can be displayed as thumbnails in Windows:
  • BMP (Windows Bitmap files).
  • GIF (Graphics Interchange Format files).
  • JPG, JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group files).
  • HTM, HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) files.

Take a look at: Thumbdata Files – What They Are, Features, Where They Are Located

Final thoughts

You probably didn't know they were called that, but you've seen them on the web and on your mobile phone many times. For example, in the image gallery. What exactly are they or what are they used for? Can they be deleted? What happens if you delete the thumbnails or images folder from your cell phone? These questions have been answered in this article. We look forward to hearing your thoughts in the comments section.