As we all know we can show thumbnail previews for image files in Windows Explorer to view or identify the image without opening it. But by default Windows can't show thumbnail previews for all image file formats. There are a few file formats like PSD, TIFF, TGA and XCF which can't be previewed by Windows Explorer.
Wouldn't it be great if we could see thumbnail previews for almost all image files in Windows Explorer? Don't worry! Today we are going to share an absolutely free and small extension for Windows Explorer which allows you to show thumbnail previews for many unsupported file formats in Windows Explorer.
"SageThumbs" is an excellent shell extension for Windows which allows you to preview almost all image file formats in Windows Explorer. It uses popular image viewer XnView's GFL library for this task.
Along with showing thumbnail previews, it also allows you to convert an image format to another which is an extra benefit of using this small utility. You can convert an image format into JPG, GIF, PNG and BMP file formats.
You can even see an image file thumbnail preview in its context menu, Just right-click on an image file and you'll see its thumbnail preview in context menu.
You can also set the image file as Desktop wallpaper by right-click on it and select the desired option. You can also select the wallpaper type (stretched, tiled, centered).
This extension adds some detailed information in image files tool-tips. Whenever you hover the mouse cursor over an image file, you can see extra info like resolution DPI, compression format, colors, etc in its tool-tip.
If you want, you can enable / disable a particular image file format to be previewed by SageThumbs using its Options window. You can also disable its context menu entry, thumbnails in Explorer or customize thumbnail size, conversion options, etc using its Settings.
Features List:
- Extended thumbnail image view of Explorer folder
- Thumbnail image in explorer context menu
- Extended info tips
- Support 162 image formats (224 extensions)
- Support additional 26 image formats via XnView plugins
- One-click conversion to popular image formats support
- Wallpaper selection support
- Copy to clipboard support
This extension can be installed in Windows 2000, XP, Vista, Windows 7, Windows Server 2003 and 2008. Both 32-bit and 64-bit editions are supported.
You can download it using following link:
Thanks to our reader "Vicky S" for sharing it...
This article was posted by VG in following section: Software, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP.
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nipunb
great share, was looking for such application from a long time.......
NZero
External plugins
SageThumbs can use external XnView plugins, it tries to automatically detect XnView installation folder or if failed it will use predefined folder. Typically this folder is "C:\Program files\XnView\PlugIns\" for 32-bit SageThumbs on 32-bit Windows or 64-bit SageThumbs on 64-bit Windows and "C:\Program Files (x86)\XnView\PlugIns\" for 32-bit SageThumbs on 64-bit Windows. So if you have no XnView installed you can create this folder manually and unpack plugins to it. Just don't forget that you need same "bit capacity" for plugins and SageThumbs.
@VG
some note on the page
This is great! Windows 8 should come with these.
fitimaj
thanks vishal for sharyng this , it's very useful tool .
Christian
Click the DOWNLOAD button NOW!
De
OMG this is great. I love that I can have a thumbnail preview for PSD files now. And I love love love the thumbnails as icons!!! I always used Xentient Thumbnails until I switched to windows 7. But SageThumbs won't show my PSD thumbnails as icons - I still just see the file icon. I use IrfanView as my default image viewer - except for PSD files which I open with GIMP instead. SageThumbs seems to have an issue with this because, if I change my PSD files to open with IrfanView, SageThumbs shows the thumbnail (as an icon). As soon as I change it back to open with GIMP, SageThumbs goes back to displaying the file icon.
maxdamage
Pity there isn't something like this for htm\html thumbnails like what IE6 for win98 and older IEs could do in explorer.