Windows 7: Thumbnail Cache - Clear and Reset

Brink · 22 May 2009

How to Clear and Reset the Thumbnail Cache in Windows

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Click here to read the entire tutorial

Last edited by Brink; 02 Apr 2013 at 10:57 PM..

Rjck · 23 Apr 2010

Ok done it, thx guys keep you posted if there's any changes...

Rjck · 26 Apr 2010

all started as usual... i check my pictures all fine... was playing, surfing, chattin', then go to pictures folder and thumbnails are rebuilding again, i check the size of the cache and it displays as 6MB usually is 122MB... weird huh?

astrajingga · 12 May 2010

nice info Brink...
thanks

Evil Nemesis · 05 Aug 2012

Hey thanks for the tip, It does the work but (I know it's kinda offtopic) How to clear Photoshop Open Dialog Box Thumbnails cache ? as they always show wrong rotated image thumbnails even after these steps mentioned here in this thread !

Brink · 05 Aug 2012

Hello S.Orangzeb,

You're welcome. I'm not sure about Photoshop though. That subject may be best posted in the Music, Pictures & Video forum area instead.

Britton30 · 11 Dec 2012

Hello Shawn, I have done the disk cleanup but I still have some folder thumbs remaining as shown in the snip of a thumbs.db viewer. They are all from my pictures folder.
I have also disabled caching as outlined here... Thumbnail Cache - Enable or Disable

Thumbnail Cache - Clear and Reset-untitled.jpg

How can I get rid of the pesky buggers?

Brink · 11 Dec 2012

Hey Gary,

You might see if deleting the individual hidden Thumbs.db files listed in your screenshot may be able to finish them off.

Britton30 · 12 Dec 2012

Well that worked. Do you have any insight why the Disk clean up, and CCleaner didn't root them out?

Brink · 12 Dec 2012

Great news.

Disk Cleanup only clears the main central thumbs.db cache in the hidden folder below.

C:\Users\User-Name\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer

Britton30 · 12 Dec 2012

Ahh, gotcha, thank you!

Windows 7: Thumbnail Cache - Clear and Reset

Thumbnail Cache - Clear and Reset problems?