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Thumbnail for cloud only

  • May 22, 2025
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We have a very large box account for our marketing team and we keep almost all of our files cloud-only.  but the problem with this is that we don't get thumbnails.  Is there a way to get thumbnails for cloud-only files?

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    Hi Erik, 

    Welcome to the Box Community!

    It is expected behavior that thumbnails do not show previews in Box Drive as the files are not actually downloaded to your computer yet. Thumbnails of Box files are not visible unless the file is cached, or marked for offline. This is currently a known limitation for Box Drive:

    • For Windows users: Thumbnails of Box files are not visible in Windows Explorer unless the file is cached or marked for offline.
    • For Mac users: File thumbnails do not appear for files that have not been previously opened through Box Drive. Additionally, Finder's Quick Look does not work for files that have not been previously opened through Box Drive.

    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. 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 

    Thanks for your participation in the Community!

    Best,

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