.ai and .psd preview on Windows 10

[claraiskn]

Hello,

I'm currently using a Mac but i will soon be working on PC: I was wondering if it was possible to previex the .psd and .ai files directly in the file explorer of Windows 10, without having to open them in Photoshop or Illustrator (as we can be done on OSX thanks to the spacebar)? It would be a great time saver!

Thank you,

Clara

[Myra Ferguson · Accepted solution]

In the Windows Explorer in Windows 10, you can see previews for a variety of file types by going to the View tab and turning on the Preview pane. You can preview .ai files but not .psd files.

[aquades]

But why can not we see the .psd? When will it be repaired?

[Brandon Loshe]

Hey Myra! I know this post is from several years ago, but I've been trying to figure this out on Windows. Your suggestion worked for me. But is there a way for this to work for .ai files, but still have Details Pane selected? I'd rather have Details Pane selected, but I still want to see a small preview. It works fine for jpeg files with either selected for me.

[Ton Frederiks]

You can always use Adobe Bridge to accurately preview these files.

[stefanim10184246]

Great! Thank you for the tip.

[MichaelStephens]

I use SageThumbs to preview ai and psd files directly in Windows Explorer. You'll also have to download and install ghostscript as well, but there is a segment further down on the page specifically about which version you need.

[claraiskn]

Okay, I'll try this. Thanks a lot for your help!

[schroef]

Not sure why but i dont see thumbs for ai files. Installed Ghostscript but dont see any difference. To bad there is not much guidance on that page

[JoeMcCollough]

Back in my pre-retirement programming days I created previews for all of our products that would work on Windows.  Why doesn't Adobe supply a previewer with their products?

[narcomans]

Because it is the responsibility of Windows, for example, apple has support for everything, but windows does not.

[NetHawk]

I also think, that this is in the responsibility of Windows, however, Acrobat does provide previews/thumbnails for PDF files (although, you have to turn it on first - by default it's off). So if Microsoft isn't going to solve this, it falls back on the software provider to make their users happy. In the meantime I use Mystic Thumbs, it is an alternative to SageThumbs, which is mentionned above. But on directories with 1000+ files it consumes quite a bit of your pc resources to create the thumbnails. Once they are done, they're cached however.

[tt11]

Hi, I am not able to preview either .ai or .psd.  Is there a setting that I am missing?

[NetHawk]

What have you tried so far? Did you install SageThumbs oder Mystic Thumbs? If not, you won't see a preview (icon) under any Windows version. If you have installed one of these tools, which one? The default settings of Mystic thumbs show you previews of .ai and .psd files by default and I assume SageThumbs does this as well.

[Linda.R.Smith]

NetHawk, Re MysticThumbs: https://mysticcoder.net/MysticThumbs What about InDesign and other adobe software? Do you see all thumbnail from other formats when toggleing through placing or viewing like you can on a Mac? Do you feel the software is safe? I work on a governrment PC and cannot find the origin of SageThumbs.  

[NetHawk]

@LRS: since there are problems with replying to a reply, I write my answer here.

1. Yes, Indesign previews are available for MysticThumbs: here's a list of all the supported file formats:
   https://mysticcoder.net/MysticThumbsFormats
2. You see thumbnails from alle the formats in Explorer, you don't have to use the preview, but you can if you want a bigger view
3. I think the software is safe. But feel free to throw the downloaded file at https://www.virustotal.com/gui/home/upload and test ist against most, if not all popular virus checkers.

[JovanZdravkovich]

It have would be perfect if it diddn't change the folders modified date. I use it to find my recent projects and recent changed files.

[NetHawk]

I think this is a one-off thing. Once all the icons are generated, it should not change the folder date anymore. I also group my files by date and have never had that issue again. But right after installation it might have behaved like you are experiencing it now.

[santokhan1999]

It is very helpful. Thank you thanks a lot dear.

[Kuttyjoe]

When OS X first came out, I thought to myself that Windows would surely have a similar overhaul and become amazing like OS X, but it never happened.  Quick Look was and is among the greatest things ever for people who deal with graphics.  Why Microsoft doesn't  respond to this is hard to understand. But, there are a couple things that are available to try.  There is a free app called Quick Look which you can download from the Windows store which does exactly what Quick Look does, just not nearly as elegantly.  select a file, press spacebar and it will enlarge and become visible just like on a Mac.  But it has one flaw.  If you are typing two words and you press the spacebar in between, Quick Look will attempt to show the file that is selected.  It's a small price to pay.  I would rate Quick Look on Windows as 8 out of 10 with regard to how well it works.  The next thing to "try" is Sage Thumbs to show the actual thumbs of Photoshop, Illustrator, and Acrobat files.  Sometimes it works and sometimes doesn't.  Some thumbs may be visible and others won't.  Some thumbs may appear after some time, or not.  It's a 4 out of 10 in terms of how well it works.  It's free though.  There's another solution which is not free.  I can't remember the name of it at the moment, but it is also a 4 out of 10 in terms of reliability, plus it wants you to continuously pay for updates.  This situation will remain sad until Microsoft understands that people use PCs for more than Word and Excel.

[NetHawk]

This tool works perfectly, although it is not free ($US34.95😞
https://mysticcoder.net/MysticThumbs

I haven't had an AI file so far, that could not be displayed / previewed. It shows the content as a file icon. It's like on a Mac.

[Kuttyjoe]

I tried Mystic Thumbs.  It worked about as well as SageThumbs.  Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't.  And I had to buy it over and over because of how the licensing works.  Basically, you'll keep pooring money into it.  After I payed for it 3 times, I just stopped using it.  Like I said, it didn't work any better than SageThumbs anyway.  I suspect that a part of the problems might be the inherent lack of quality of Windows itself.

[NetHawk]

Strange, because the version I bought is years old and works with all new Illustrator files. But also all other formats are displayed without any problems. SageThumbs does support less file formats, that's why I never tried it. Next time you encounter a file that Sage Thumbs (and/or) MysticThumbs can't display, you might consider to make it available to the community. Maybe there's a specific problem in your environment (or I might learn where the limit of Mystic Thumbs is). However, Quick Look would not be a solution for me, I need to see all the file previews at once to help me pick the one I'm looking for. Hitting the space bar for every file just doesn't cut it for me.

[Kuttyjoe]

Since last year when I made that post, I decided to give Mystic Thumbs yet another try.  It worked well for months and then I noticed that Windows Explorer was struggling to present the contents of a window.  It would show the blue progress bar in the address bar across the top for a long time.  And if I went out of the folder and back in, it would do the same thing.  The first thing I considered to be a problem was Mystic Thumbs.  I cleared out the cash, etc. hoping that it might resolve the problem but it didn't work.  I uninstalled Mystic Thumbs and the problem was solved instantly, but I'm back to looking at blank icons.  I think the problem is that Windows itself is just not nimble or efficient enough to view thumbs like MacOS can do.  MacOS has been doing this since the beginning of OS X.  Windows also has serious problems viewing complex fonts which are also not a problem on MacOS.  So I think this is a Windows problem.  Until Microsoft does something to improve the performance of Windows itself, this might be unsolvable.  I have a modern PC with a high performance graphics card and 30 gigs of ram.  None of that matters if the bottleneck is the OS itself.  I guess I will try Sage Thumbs again.

[williamv51711697]

I have never been able to view ai files as preview thumbs and have tried everything under the sun.  Sage thumbs dont work, nothing works.  Its a problem I have had for years.  I know you can use bridge but sometimes that takes too much time and is only folder specific.  Say I want to do a search for an image but not sure where its at.  I get my results, all the images show as preview thumbs but not AI files.  Its a problem Adobe has had for a long time and I have yet to get accurate info on how to do it.  I am an artist-specialise in metal work.  So if I want to do a search for "tribal" images I get a ton of results through years of collecting files-all the images except AI show as preview thumbs.  Nothing I do can change that and I have tried everything.