Hi Bryan, 

Welcome to the Box Community!

For Mac, local previews and thumbnails in Finder will only work if the file has been previously opened or cached by Box Drive. Basically, you would have to open the file first or mark them for offline use for you to be able to preview them in thumbnails.

Additionally, Finder's Quick Look does not work for files that have not been previously opened through Box Drive. 

Thanks for your post and let us know how else we can help!

That you can preview files in a corporate environment without first opening is crippling.  It is for this reason alone I can NOT recommend Box to anyone and I recommended to management to migrate to another solution.

Will this issue be addressed?

It is very time consuming to open each file, especially if you are a graphic designer. 

Even if I have had the file recently opened, I still cannot see a preview. Dropbox was way better for this. Wish our company did not switch.

Hi Julie, 

Welcome to the Box Community!

You could "mark a folder for Offline" access and it will download that whole folder to the cache, which would make thumbnails work in that folder and the files within. Check out this article on how to Mark a folder for offline access: https://support.box.com/hc/en-us/articles/360043697574-Making-Content-Available-Offline 

If files you marked for offline still don't preview, please go ahead and submit a ticket with our support team by clicking on the “Contact Support” link just above this page so they can further investigate.

Best,

France,

Marking for offline access is problematic, since the folder could be too big to sync locally. Perhaps this is just a UX issue. I wonder if one of these ideas might work?

1. Implement a background Quick Look cache of the entire Box Drive. Users already accept that the initial sync takes forever, so this won't even be noticeable.


2. If that is deemed to be too expensive (e.g., the user has millions of files in Box), then perhaps just do it on demand to the specific folder when opened in Finder? This is like a peek-ahead kind of caching.


3. If all else fails, when the user tries to preview a specific single file, if there is no cache, then trigger that cache. Often I forget that I can't preview in Box, so I'm sitting there waiting for the preview to come up. In fact for most files, it would have been faster to just open the file. So we are just hoping Box would do this in the background for us.

Thanks!

How do you do a background Quick Look cache for a folder?

I find it extremely annoying and time consuming that I cannot preview images. For people in marketing, Box is NOT ideal. And then it takes 3 double clicks to open something in preview. Dropbox was way better and faster.

I agree with Joseph on the offline stuff. We have millions of files and I work with other people on a team that need to access the same stuff.

I am in the same situation. I am a graphic designer and marketing manager, and am very frustrated that I can't view files before placing them into my project files that I am working on. Dropbox can do it, why can't box do it?

Ditto, we're a design agency and have just signed up to Box and loaded all our assets in order to work online. When you're working with lots of large, linked image files and you can't see a preview, it's really time-consuming and starts to affect workflow - and therefore our bottom line. We can't keep marking hundreds of files offline and online to work around this. C'mon Box, can't you fix this? It's a really fundamental flaw in an otherwise superb system. 

I'm in the same position, for creative work without thumbnail support makes this platform extremely annoying. Making an asset folder 'available offline is not a solution. I too, don't understand why if Dropbox has this feature, why Box cannot have the same feature, with 1400+ app integrations on Box.com, but not one of them can support thumbnail cache? This issue is not new either, as there is a request for this on Box Pulse from 2017, with a response from Box in 2019 of 'under consideration'. How's that coming along Box?

I just wanted to come here and add to what everyone else has said. I'm working as an art director for a large organization, and finding files takes FOREVER bc I can't preview images. We need this feature added, please. 

I am in the same boat. Art director who recently switched to the Box Drive from Box Sync and now I can't see image thumbnails for graphic work or quickly preview anything by hitting spacebar. This is a real problem so please find a way to greenlight a solution quickly.

It's so time consuming ! They need to allow preview while clicking spacebar asap ...

Indeed. This seems like a basic feature. Works perfectly on Google Drive and Dropbox. And the workaround offered is an unrealistic solution. This is a non-starter.  I thought this could be a valuable solution instead of setting up a cloud server. Especially dealing with large files. But would never work for a creative agency.

Previewing thumbnails in finder is the number 1 feature I'd love to see Box implement. It would make a huge difference! 

Hi,

I stumbled upon that 'spacebar' preview does work for box files when looking through your hard drive via the storage tab under about this mac. If you click "manage space", then 'documents', then 'File Browser'. You are able to navigate your Box drive and preview files as you would normally. I'm not saying this is a solution for searching box, but it seems like it's possible in this spot, why wouldn't it be in Finder? Seems like something they have turned off in the app on purpose?

Any updates on this BOX?!

We tried Content Cloud Plugin for Adobe from Box App gallery , an extension panel for Adobe application. It shows preview for image, videos and audios inside of Photoshop ,Premiere, and assets can be directly dragged into the project, saved us a lot of time.

Hi - yes we're trying out that and CI HUB (which works similarly). It is pretty effective, but still would want to be able to do a quick preview in finder :)

Box, any updates on this?

Also, I sometimes will use Bridge, but now I cannot access Box files in Bridge. Bridge is kind of a hog and I'd rather use Finder. 

Anyone else try the Content Cloud Plugin that someone recommended?

Hi 

We have been trialing both CI HUB and Content Cloud Plugin. The interface on Content Cloud is a bit easier to use, but CI HUB offers more features and probably the route we willl end up going. It allows us to connect to other DAMs as well. CI HUB is also more expensive ($20 vs under $10 month). 

Would still prefer quick preview in Finder as the ultimate solution. Navigating via a third party plug-in in the app is not always the best solution. Considering most other competitive products allow a quick preview in finder - seems really odd that Box doesn't. 

Sorry Geoff, I missed your comment on CI HUB. I will look into this. I totally agree with your comment about Finder.

Also, the colored dots do not stick so I am unable to color any files anymore. Box has a lot of work to do.

Sorry for the off-topic comment. We are the developer of Content Cloud Plugin, our goal is to improve workflow and collaboration experience for designers who use  Box to store their assets. Geoff, could you please send us the features that you would like to see in our Box + Adobe integration?  We are actively implementing new features at this moment, your valuable feedback is much appreciated.   You can send us the feature request through email or click "support" button inside of the plugin.

 We also provided a free version on Adobe Exchange site for any one want to try it. 

1526351403242 when does the free version expire? 

We are focusing on developing new features at this moment, the payment system inside of the plugin hasn't been implemented yet, which may take several months. Until then, please enjoy the free version with full features. Of course , if you would like to support our development efforts, you can choose the paid version for only $4.99/month.

Thanks for trying our Box +Adobe integration and please let us know if you find any issue. Thanks

So after two years from the original post, BOX hasn't fix the issue and only let some plugin developer to kind of helping to solve the major issue???

I recently switched from PC to Mac and box has become the reason why I wish I never switched. I am a web and graphic designer and not being able to see thumbnails is crippling.