Thumbwright

For Windows 10 and 11

Your RAW, HEIC and PDF files, finally with thumbnails.

Thumbwright teaches File Explorer to draw previews for 315 file types, from camera RAW and HEIC to PDF, Photoshop and CAD, and adds a right-click menu to convert, shrink and read text out of images. Free, open source, and it never touches the internet.

Download for Windows MSI choco install thumbwright
  • No internet access
  • Open source, GPL-3.0
  • Signed installer
Compare the same folder
Lisbon trip
With Thumbwright
  • Thumbnail of two clay otter sculptures, from a Canon CR3 RAW fileOtters.CR3
  • Thumbnail of a fan of paint colour swatches, from an Olympus ORF RAW fileColour fan.ORF
  • Thumbnail of the first page of a report with a bar chart, from a PDFQuarterly report.PDF
  • Thumbnail of a red-brown house among trees, from a Fujifilm RAF RAW fileRed house.RAF
  • Thumbnail of bicycles and a child trailer, from a JPEG XL fileBicycles.JXL
  • Thumbnail of a terracotta flower pot on a windowsill, from a Nikon NEF RAW fileFlower pot.NEF
  • Thumbnail of two toy robots, one blue and one orange, from a Sony ARW RAW fileRobots.ARW
  • Thumbnail of a stone castle on a hill at dusk, from an Olympus ORF RAW fileCastle hill.ORF
Same folder, same files. Windows on its own cannot read these.

Three things you'll use

Open a folder. Right-click. Done.

No new app to learn. Thumbwright lives inside Explorer and gets out of the way.

01 / SEE

Thumbnails for the files Windows skips

Camera RAW, HEIC, JPEG XL, PDF, Office files, Photoshop, Blender, CAD previews, comics and video frames. Pictures where there were grey icons.

02 / CHANGE

Convert, resize and shrink from the right-click menu

HEIC to JPEG, a folder of photos to 1920 pixels, a picture under 1 MB for email. JPEG rotation is lossless, and your EXIF data and colour profile come along.

03 / READ

Copy text out of pictures. Combine scans into PDFs.

Copy the text from a screenshot or a scan with Windows' own OCR. Merge pages into one PDF, a searchable PDF or a comic book (.cbz).

The right-click menu

One entry. Everything inside it.

Right-click a file, or a whole selection, and pick Thumbwright. It opens a menu with a preview of your picture on top and only the tools that make sense for what you selected.

  • Convert toJPEG, PNG, WebP, AVIF, JPEG XL and more.
  • Resize, rotate and make smallerFit to a size, rotate JPEGs without re-compressing, shrink for email or to under 1, 5 or 10 MB.
  • Copy text, combine into PDFOCR to the clipboard, one PDF or a searchable PDF from many pictures.
  • OrganiseRename by the date the photo was taken, sort into folders, set a folder icon or lock screen.

Where is it? On Windows 11, right-click and choose Thumbwright, or hold Shift while you right-click. Every tool also runs from a terminal as twctl.

Thumbwright's popup menu in dark mode: a thumbnail of the selected camera RAW photo, then its name and size, then Convert to, Resize, Rotate and flip, Make smaller, Copy text from image, Copy, Organise, Details, Set as and Thumbwright Workbench.

315 file types

Does it work with my files?

Type a file extension or a whole file name. The answer comes from the same table Thumbwright uses.

Try , , or .

  • Thumbnail of a garden with a white gazebo and a pinwheel, from a Canon CR3 file
    .CR3 Canon RAW, drawn from the preview saved in the file.
  • Thumbnail of a hillside town with red roofs, from a Sony ARW file
    .ARW Sony RAW.
  • Thumbnail of a stone plant pot shaped like a face, from a Canon CR3 file
    .CR3 A second Canon body, same result.
  • Thumbnail of autumn trees and a yellow bush, from a Panasonic RW2 file
    .RW2 Panasonic RAW.

Every picture on this page was made by Thumbwright from public-domain sample files. Sources and licences.

Safe and private

It runs inside Explorer. So it has to behave.

No component opens a network connection: there is no upload, telemetry or update check.Thumbwright security policy

Offline, always

Nothing leaves your PC. No account, no cloud, no telemetry. OCR uses the engine already built into Windows.

A bad file can't crash Explorer

Risky decoders run in a separate locked-down process with memory and CPU limits. If one fails, only that process dies.

Fully reversible

Every change to the registry is journaled. Thumbwright never replaces another program's handler, and uninstalling removes exactly what it added.

Signed, open, checkable

The installer and binaries are Authenticode-signed, releases list SHA-256 checksums, and all the source is GPL-3.0 on GitHub.

Install

Two minutes, and you can undo it.

Windows 10 (version 2004 or later) or Windows 11, 64-bit. Installing for all users needs administrator rights.

Recommended

Windows installer (MSI)

Download Thumbwright-<version>-x64.msi from the latest release, double-click it and you are done. Signed. Checksums are on the release page.

Get the latest MSI 
# or silent, for IT
msiexec /i Thumbwright-<version>-x64.msi /qn

Chocolatey

Already use Chocolatey? One line installs it, and one line updates it later.

choco install thumbwright
# later
choco upgrade thumbwright

winget

Not available yet. Until it is, use the MSI or Chocolatey. This page will say so when that changes.

HEIC photos need nothing extra; AVIF needs a free Microsoft add-on

Thumbwright decodes HEIC and HEIF photos (iPhone, Android, cameras) itself, with no Microsoft Store codec. If a file uses a variant it cannot read, it tries Windows' own codecs when you have the HEIF Image Extensions and HEVC Video Extensions installed. AVIF and AVCI pictures are decoded by Windows only, so they need the Store's AV1 and HEIF extensions. Run twctl doctor and it tells you which ones are missing. Camera RAW, JPEG XL and most other formats need nothing extra.

What has been tested

  • Tested on Windows 11, build 26340.
  • Windows 10 has not been tested yet.
  • Pre-1.0: settings and file formats may still change.

Questions

Good to know

Why do my HEIC files still have no thumbnail?

HEIC is decoded by Thumbwright itself, so the Microsoft Store codecs are not needed. A missing thumbnail usually means the file is damaged, uses a variant the built-in decoder cannot read (then Windows' HEIF Image Extensions and HEVC Video Extensions help, if installed), or another program owns the .heic type, see the next question. Run twctl doctor on the file to see which.

Why does another app still draw some of my thumbnails?

Thumbwright never takes over a file type from another program on its own. A cloud-storage app can own .heic or .bmp, and Windows keeps its own Photo Thumbnail Provider for .jpg. twctl doctor lists every type that is owned elsewhere so you can decide.

Where is the right-click menu?

On Windows 11, right-click a file and choose Thumbwright. You can also hold Shift while you right-click, which opens the classic menu on every build, or choose Show more options where Windows still offers it. Every tool also works from a terminal: twctl --help lists them.

Does it connect to the internet?

No. No part of Thumbwright opens a network connection: there is no upload, no telemetry and no update check. You update it yourself, with a new MSI or choco upgrade.

Is it safe to open folders with damaged or untrusted files?

That is what the design is for. Risky decoders run in a separate process with a memory limit, a CPU-time limit and no access to your clipboard or desktop. A broken file can stop its own decoder, not Explorer.

How do I uninstall it?

Open Settings, Apps, Installed apps, find Thumbwright and choose Uninstall. Or run msiexec /x Thumbwright-<version>-x64.msi /qn, or choco uninstall thumbwright. Registration is journaled, so uninstalling removes exactly what the installer added.