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Participating Frequently
June 25, 2026
Open for Voting

Allow background generation of Grid previews for entire albums

  • June 25, 2026
  • 1 reply
  • 9 views

Lightroom Desktop currently generates grid previews only for the images that become visible while scrolling. For photographers importing hundreds or thousands of RAW files, this makes the initial culling process unnecessarily slow because every new screen requires waiting for previews to render.

Please add an option such as “Generate Grid Previews” for an entire album or folder. Lightroom could build these previews in the background (similar to how Lightroom Classic builds Standard or 1:1 previews) while the user continues working.

Ideally:

  • Generate previews for all images in an album or selection.
  • Run as a low-priority background task.
  • Show progress in the Activity panel.
  • Pause automatically when the computer is busy.
  • Store the previews in the existing cache.

This would dramatically improve the culling experience for photographers working with large RAW files (e.g. Sony A1 II 50 MP images) and remove the constant waiting while scrolling through the grid.

    1 reply

    Participating Frequently
    June 26, 2026

    More clear explanation:

     

    After importing a large batch of RAW files, I want to quickly cull them using Flag/Reject with Caps Lock. This is very fast until I reach images that don’t have a preview yet. Lightroom then has to generate previews on the fly, making the workflow much slower.

    The current workaround is cumbersome: switch to Grid view, scroll to force preview generation, wait, then continue culling.

    Please add the option to generate previews for all images in an album, either:

    • automatically (when sufficient cache is available), or
    • manually via a “Generate Previews” command in the album menu.

    This would greatly improve the culling workflow for large imports.