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How To Enable SVG Thumbnail Preview In File Explorer On Windows 10

In Windows, if you enable large or extra large thumbnails in File Explorer and select a JPG or PNG file, you can preview it from just its thumbnail. This feature mostly works for common file types. For images, particularly large collections of photos that you’ve imported from a phone or camera, it’s helpful when you’re organizing them. Windows gives you a preview of common types of images but this excludes SVG files. If you have a lot of SVG files, you can enable SVG thumbnail preview with a File Explorer extension.

To enable SVG thumbnail preview, you need to install the SVG Explorer Extension in Windows. This extension works on Windows 7 and above. It has support for both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows. Once installed, it will preview an SVG file on its thumbnail as well as in the preview pane in File Explorer.

SVG Thumbnail Preview

Download the extension from its Github page. Make sure you download the correct one to match your Windows architecture. For example, if you’re running 32-bit Windows, download and install the 32-bit version of the extension. If you download the incorrect version, it will still install on your system however, it won’t work.

Once installed, you need to close, and restart Explorer.exe. You can do this in one of two ways; from the command line, or by restarting your system.

If you want to restart Explorer.exe from the command line, open Command Prompt with administrative rights, and run the following command;

TASKKILL /IM explorer* /F
 explorer.exe

When you run the above commands, the taskbar will disappear for a few seconds, and reappear again. This indicates the Explorer.exe processing being force closed and then restarting again. Once it restarts, you ought to see a preview of all SVG files in File Explorer. Make sure you’ve got large or extra large thumbnails selected. In the event that this doesn’t do the trick, restart Windows to enable SVG thumbnail previews.

You can view SVG files in Internet Explorer, and most other web browsers. You don’t need the extension to view them. This extension does not add editing capabilities for SVG files to Windows. You’re going to need a dedicated app/program to edit an SVG file. If you want to remove the preview, you need to uninstall the SVG Explorer Extension. To uninstall the extension, go to the Control Panel, and select Uninstall a program.

File Explorer extensions can add thumbnail preview and view support for unsupported images. For example, if you own an iPhone and prefer to save photos in the new HEIC format, there’s an extension that can enable support for HEIC files.

3 Comments

  1. Awesome extension! Thanks for letting me know about it.

    Found some installer links:
    https://code.google.com/archive/p/svg-explorer-extension/downloads

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