Make Recycle Bin RAW (.rw2) thumbnails as images instead of icons?

I don't know, but why are you sending files to the re-cycle bin when you are half expecting to restore them later ?  Why not just leave them in the folder where they belong against possible future use ?  It takes up no more storage space.

Chris Cosgrove

I don't know, but why are you sending files to the re-cycle bin when you are half expecting to restore them later ?  Why not just leave them in the folder where they belong against possible future use ?  It takes up no more storage space.

 

Chris Cosgrove

I do understand the argument about keeping the raws.  I can save them on the Cloud so they don't take up storage space as they are large files.  I leave them in the recycle Bin until I sure they are not to be used again.  However, there are time when I'd like to know just what I am deleting. So, back to my original question: I want image thumbnails instead of icons in the Recycle Bin.

EDIT: Interestingly, I have the MS RAW Image Extension installed and I know that it has helped get thumbnail images in File Explorer. Furthermore, when in the Recycle Bin>View>Preview Pane, the pane says that "No preview is available."  But, if I drag an icon into the pane, I then get an image thumbnail while holding the right click down. However, as soon as I release the right click, imaged thumbnail leaves the pane and goes back to its original icon position. I would think that having RIE would allow for thumbnail images to occur within the Recycle Bin?  And, I have tried several of the suggestions from this site (https://windowsreport.com/restore-thumbnails-windows-10/) and all settings suggested by the site were already in place.

Edited by flycaster, 18 July 2021 - 01:49 PM.

But that is not the way it works.

Sending a file to Recycle Bin does not remove it from your hard drive, all it does is re-write the file allocation table to show the file in RB rather than the folder you had moved it from, but it is still taking up the same amount of hard drive space. It is only when you empty RB that you free up drive space.

A better alternative perhaps would be to create a folder called, say, 'Unused images'  and create identically named folders in this for images you may or may not want in the future. As an example, you have been shooting primroses, so you have a folder in your image file called 'Primroses' with the photos in it. You decide that Primrose_3 is the one you want to use so you move the unwanted _1 and _2 into \Unused images\Primroses\

You could use cloud storage but beyond a few GB it starts getting expensive. I have about 500GB of photos on my system, with them and about another 400GB of duplicates on external storage. External HDDs are relatively cheap today.

Chris Cosgrove

But that is not the way it works.

 

Sending a file to Recycle Bin does not remove it from your hard drive, all it does is re-write the file allocation table to show the file in RB rather than the folder you had moved it from, but it is still taking up the same amount of hard drive space. It is only when you empty RB that you free up drive space.

 

A better alternative perhaps would be to create a folder called, say, 'Unused images'  and create identically named folders in this for images you may or may not want in the future. As an example, you have been shooting primroses, so you have a folder in your image file called 'Primroses' with the photos in it. You decide that Primrose_3 is the one you want to use so you move the unwanted _1 and _2 into \Unused images\Primroses\

 

You could use cloud storage but beyond a few GB it starts getting expensive. I have about 500GB of photos on my system, with them and about another 400GB of duplicates on external storage. External HDDs are relatively cheap today.

 

Chris Cosgrove

Thanks, Chris, for explaining how the RB and files interact...learn something new every day.  However, we still are on my original quest: How to get image thumbnails in my RB.  BTW, no matter what, the RAW images sent to the RB, don't remain there for more than a day or two, at which point they are deleted. Also, I've got a 2TB computer.

I'm afraid I can't help you with that as the last time I used re-cycle bin I was running XP, I have it disabled on all my drives. I do have the 'Delete' dialogue pop-up enabled as this gives me sufficient pause to check that what I am deleting is what I want to delete. This was enabled after a nasty incident with a folder of about 400 images I was about to edit, except I hit 'Delete' instead. Luckily I was able to recover the files with 'Recuva'.

In point of fact clicking 'Delete' does not remove data from your hard drive. What it does is rewrite the FAT to show the space the file or folder was in as empty and available for writing new data to. Which is why recovery software works best if used as quickly as possible after realising you have made a mistake and before the system has the chance to over-write the space. I spent an anxious 15 or 20 minutes with that one !

Chris Cosgrove

I'm afraid I can't help you with that as the last time I used re-cycle bin I was running XP, I have it disabled on all my drives. I do have the 'Delete' dialogue pop-up enabled as this gives me sufficient pause to check that what I am deleting is what I want to delete. This was enabled after a nasty incident with a folder of about 400 images I was about to edit, except I hit 'Delete' instead. Luckily I was able to recover the files with 'Recuva'.

 

In point of fact clicking 'Delete' does not remove data from your hard drive. What it does is rewrite the FAT to show the space the file or folder was in as empty and available for writing new data to. Which is why recovery software works best if used as quickly as possible after realising you have made a mistake and before the system has the chance to over-write the space. I spent an anxious 15 or 20 minutes with that one !

 

Chris Cosgrove

Nice to know how to recover from delete. And, as for my specific problem, it appears that, for some reason, the Preview Pane in the RB can't recover the thumbnail image without help (ie, drag icon into preview pane.) I have indexing turned off (I use Everything for fast file searches) and I'm wondering if this maybe the reason???

EDIT: As the Preview Pane in the RB wasn't working properly, I further researched this issue and found this site: FIX: Preview Pane Not Working In Windows 10.  It lead me to changing "showpreviewhandlers" value to "1" if it was set to "0".  However, when in the registry, was not there! How can I get it back to where I think it should be?

Edited by flycaster, 19 July 2021 - 09:15 AM.

There is mention in the link you post that you can create the missing registry entry. However before you even think about creating entries back up your registry first in case of error. I have made registry edits but it is something I do with great care, the manual or guide in one hand and trepidation in my heart !  Getting it wrong can brick your computer.

I don't seem to have the pre-view panel routinely available in File Explorer but I very seldom find a need for it because of the nature of much of my photography. I have been involved for quite a long time in a project recording Commonwealth war graves. Pre-view is not useful for sorting images of extremely similar objects and I have about 100K of them !

Chris Cosgrove

There is mention in the link you post that you can create the missing registry entry. However before you even think about creating entries back up your registry first in case of error. I have made registry edits but it is something I do with great care, the manual or guide in one hand and trepidation in my heart !  Getting it wrong can brick your computer.

 

I don't seem to have the pre-view panel routinely available in File Explorer but I very seldom find a need for it because of the nature of much of my photography. I have been involved for quite a long time in a project recording Commonwealth war graves. Pre-view is not useful for sorting images of extremely similar objects and I have about 100K of them !

 

Chris Cosgrove

As I have been communicating with several forums on this issue, I have learned, as you have stated, that the preview pane is not readily available within the Recycle Bin.  Furthermore, I have self-discovered that I can see the thumbnail image if I drag the icon into the preview panel.  So, as things now stand, I am willing to live with this issue and thank all for their help.  BTW, "showpreviewhandlers" was found in another part of the registry and its values were set to "1".

I just got this solution from another forum: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/quicklook/9nv4bs3l1h4s#activetab=pivot:overviewtab.  Microsoft's store Quick Look is a free app that allows for relatively large thumbnail views of files (including icons from the Recycle Bin) by selecting the file and holding down the space bar.  This is one neat app.

Edited by flycaster, 20 July 2021 - 09:08 AM.

Any solution that works for you !

Chris Cosgrove

Any solution that works for you !

 

Chris Cosgrove

Yup!

Just a little while ago, the RAWs (.rw2) in my Recycle Bin were only showing as program icons, and not as image thumbnails as they used to.  Also, I noted that the RB's Preview Pane was not working. So, I went on to a few forums to find out how to get the thumbnail images back.  Someone recommended free QuickLook from the MS store.  And, that worked rather nicely (select a file and hold space bar down, got a nice image.)  However, and this is rather interesting, the RAWs in the RB now show as thumbnail images as they used to...don't have to do anything, don't have to use QuickLook...the images are back.  What's going on???  Perhaps this has something to do with Indexing?  Although I use Everything, I think that I do have Indexing turned on for Program Files, Program Files (x86), Documents, and Pictures.

Often, thumbnails of image files are not visible in File Explorer folders on Windows 10. You can see image file icons with .jpeg, .png or other file extensions, but no thumbnail preview of the photos.

 Checkout this article for better answers, https://www.stellarinfo.com/blog/thumbnail-previews-not-showing/