How to Customize Folder Thumbnails in Windows 11 22H2

Windows 11 22H2, the first feature update for Windows 11, should bring a ton of new features and much-needed improvements. One such enhancement is folder thumbnails, which allow you to view the files inside a folder. If you don’t like how folder thumbnails look in Windows 11, here’s how you can change it.

A set of custom icons for folder thumbnails in Windows 11 (courtesy of LEXX911 on Reddit ) allows you to enlarge the preview and change the style of folder icons. You still have to deal with previewing a single file (in Windows 7, for example, folder thumbnails can display multiple images at once), but you can make it bigger and more convenient.

Important! Customizing folder thumbnails requires a third-party application called CustomizerGod. Its source code is not publicly available, so you should exercise caution when using such customization software. We strongly recommend backing up important data and keeping your antivirus up to date.

Also note that this guide only applies to Windows 11 build 22581 and later. It won’t work on the initial version of Windows 11 (build 22000).

Change folder thumbnails in Windows 11

1. Download the CustomizerGod utility and custom icons in the ZIP archive .
2. Extract the downloaded files wherever you want.
3. Open CustomizerGod.exe. On startup, the application will show an error that you can safely ignore.
   
4. Go to the General Icons section and look for the ID6 icon. Hover over an icon to display its ID in a tooltip.
   
5. Click the button with three lines in the lower right corner.
   
6. Click “Export Resources” to back up the original icon. You need a backup in case you want to restore the default thumbnails.
   
7. Now it’s time to replace the thumbnail icon with a new one. Click the Edit button.
   
8. Select the new thumbnail icon you want to use in the File Explorer window. Once selected, the app will automatically restart File Explorer.
9. At this point, you should have your changes applied. If Windows 11 still shows the default thumbnail style, click the Full Clean button in the Icon Cache section to force the icon cache to rebuild and use the new thumbnail style.
   
10. In some cases, the new thumbnail may still not work. Open the downloaded Rebuild Cache.bat ZIP file to fix the problem. After that, there is no need to restart the computer.
    

You should end up with something that looks like this, depending on which icon style you chose:

Restore Original Folder Thumbnails in Windows 11

1. Open the CustomizerGod app and select the ID6 icon.
2. Click the Edit button and select the original icon that you exported as a backup in the previous section in step 6.
3. After restarting File Explorer, rebuild the icon cache using the Full Clean button or the Rebuild Cache.bat file.

Do you like custom folder thumbnails in Windows 11 or do you prefer the default one? Let us know what you think in the comments.