.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

[Santo_Khan]

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.

[Jonas DK]

To view PSD, PSB, AI, EPS, SVG etc thumbnails files natively in windows explorer.

The ONLY things that will do this 100% is "PSD codec" (http://www.ardfry.com/psd-codec/)

[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.

[Grey Desk]

There is an amazing app in the windows store call "QuickLook". It gives windows a very similar function of quickly previewing with spacebar. Life changing on windows!

[Kuttyjoe]

That is true.  I've been using it for a year or so now and it is absolutely life changing.  I can remember when Quick Look first appeared on MacOS way back in the early 2000's.  I thought, Surely, Microsoft is going to copy this feature because this is simply the most amazing thing.  But nope!  Never.  In fact, Microsoft proceeded to make Windows less visually functional in terms of viewing images.  Windows 10 got rid of the preview pane that was on the bottom that made it easier to view a decent size image at the bottom of the Explorer window.  They moved it to the right side, but that is a terrible place to put it since it forces you to use a much bigger Explorer window.  There's another app called oldnewexplorer that actually puts the preview pane back on the bottom, just like it was in Windows 7.  I've been using that for years and it works great.  MacOS is just a million times better than Windows when it comes to being able to just view images and file types.  I'm also using SageThumbs to "help out" with viewing file types but it is completely hit and miss. You never know what it will view and what it won't.  If I have a folder full of Illustrator files, it will view some of them, some of the time and not others.  But the next day it might view other files and not the ones from the day before.  So it's a real mess on Windows.  I don't understand why Microsoft won't solve it.

[philchavanne]

Insanely awesome! Thank you! I just installed it on my Win10 64-bit PC and it works like a freakin charm! A simple workaround to a problem that has plagued Adobe for years with zero relief brought to the community.

And who doesn't love free when the next best utility costs $35/year/user? 

[WendyMarie]

For someone who doesn't have tons of RAM, adding more adobe apps isn't always the first solution.

[Red Point]

Why would it be Window's responsibility to preview Adobe files? If Windows 10 had to preview every file extension that hit the market, it's dev team wouldn't do much else quite frankly.

The fact that there are no previews of Adobe apps in Windows 10 speaks volumes about the company culture of their lack of detail. That thumbs cannot be viewed natively in Windows Explorer has been a complain by so many users for a such a long long time! This is so essential for any workflow. I do use bridge now and again, but the way it displays icons is so awefull and weird, that I really dont like using Bridge at all. Also, the text in Bridge is super small. Even if you change if to large in preferences, it's still much too small (very bad for Accessibility - Adobe should know better to be Accessibility Friendly).  

Anyway, in the meantime Windows users are left stranded using half baked and urealiable third party apps like sage & co or use Bridge and ruin your eyes. 

Lack of previews is really something that should finally be addressed by Adobe. Either they get their own team to do it, or they send a team to Redmond and start negotiated a solution with Microsoft. But sticking your head in the sand and pretending all is good is pretty childish. 

That's my opinion. 

[NetHawk]

Why Windows should handle the previews? Because MacOs does ist, too. Not only that. Windows handles previews of all kind of things. From all the office files (I know, it's the same company, but it's not Office that makes the previews happen, it's the operating system beneath), many file types from camera manufacturers, many image types and the list goes on an on. All right, Adobe too could take some action (they did it in the past, but deliberately canceled the previews many years ago). If Windows would be such a great OS, it wouldn't let users alone with that. Again: it works perfectly under MacOS. If Apple can do it, Microsoft can do it too.

[Jonas DK]

All other amswers in this thread in INCORRECT. 
1. Bridge is a wrong answer as it does NOT open from within Windows 10 
2. Sage thumbs is not the right option and and many limitations

The ONLY solution (and I have tried them all) is PSD CODEC (http://www.ardfry.com/psd-codec/)

That will preview AI and PSD and everything else from with Windows 10 explorer.

THIS is the ONLY correct answer. Cheers 🙂

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

>>1. Bridge is a wrong answer as it does NOT open from within Windows 10 

I don't understand this reply. Bridge does open on Windows 10, one can see the preview AI and PSD files, and one can open those files through Bridge. Did I misunderstand?

[NathanOdellin]

It's frankly ridiculous that this is even a question in 2021, but I feel your pain. Beyond ludicrous that I have to open an application just to be able to see what my file is. 

There are a few mentions of 3rd party apps out there for windows that allow space bar quick look functionality. I use one called SEER and I highly recommend. Just google Seer windows 10. Costs about $12 for the full version. 

It's way more powerful than the Mac OS quick look and it works great. But yeah, this still means you have to use it in order to see what your file is. Why on earth no one at Windows thinks being able to see what your file looks like is even vaguely a neccessity, beggars belief. 

[WendyMarie]

Thank you. I'll take a look.

[Spkblue]

Preview in Windows with to spacerbar ---> Quickloop from Microsoft Store. 

[Jonas DK]

This is a plain wrong answer in 2022 - still tops the google search in 2022. Windows can't do this yet - amazing. No 3rd party program can do this either with previewing ai files.

[Kuttyjoe]

At this point, I believe the reason Microsoft doesn't do this is because the OS is not efficient enough to actually handle it.  If Windows natively could view various file types, it would choke the OS and people would complain about how slow Windows is.  My experience with Windows is that it chokes to death when just viewing complex letter fonts while MacOS has no problem whatsoever viewing the same fonts.  It will probably do the same with a large Photoshop or Illustrator file.  MacOS is an amazing OS.  Windows is stuck in the distant past.  Updates to Windows do nothing to change this whatsoever.  But, I suppose the benefit of that is that is is much more backwards compatible than MacOS.  Apple cares nothing at all about your perfectly working thousands of dollars worth of printers, scanners, etc.  If you take the next update, you'll probably say goodbye to some of that equipment.

[Jonas DK]

It would NOT choke the OS. Win 10 can easily handle showing thumbnails - easy. There is NO reason why Microsoft doesn't natively show thumbnails for ALL image related files like SVG, AI, PSD and so on. They are imcompetent and lazy. Period. No excues.

However it would be great to know if there was a 3rd party pluin or extension to make viewing AI thumbnails files a reality. 

[williamv51711697]

I dont know the whys and wherefors on why this isnt happening.  What I would like to know is-with all the demand for this feature-why is there no response-no explanation?  Why are so many clammoring for this but its like we are talking to ourselves-which we are.  Whats the point of a forum if no one is listening? 

[LR Smith]

It's simple: Productivity.

If your a graphic desinger and work on millions of files, have gazillions of assets, the last thing you want to do is open every one in the folder to find what you're looking for. 

Gotta Mac now. My employer finally allows Macs on the network. Can't always see everything from preview like InDy files... Can you hear me Adobe? Need a IDMarkz Preview plugin But can see most everything else 😄 

[schroef]

There is an app for osx to preview indd files. It's called inddpreview. It does cost couple dollars butt works nice