How to Enable Thumbnail Previews of RAW Images Windows 10

Digital cameras are different from the phone camera, they save RAW photos instead of JPEG or other extensions. RAW photos use ORF, DNG, or other formats depending on the type and brand of cameras. RAW is the general terminology for uncompressed formats.

Windows 10 support the automatic thumbnails for a large list of formats, but some RAW extensions are not included in that list.

This does not mean that you cannot preview thumbnails of RAW images on Windows 10.  In this article, we will discuss, how you can enable thumbnail preview for RAW images.

Enable Thumbnail Previews of RAW Images Windows 10

Click on the Windows Start button, and start typing Microsoft Store to open Microsoft Store.

In Microsoft Store, search for the “RAW Image Extension”. This application is free, download and install it on your computer.

Click the Get button to download and install the extension.

After finishing the installation, quit all of the file explorer windows on your computer.

Now open a new file explorer and go to the folders with RAW images stored. You will see that the RAW files have thumbnails with the proper image of underlying photos.

The thumbnail extension from Microsoft is effective for most of the format of the RAW image. It may read and show a preview of the metadata of the images. Sometimes the Microsoft RAW image thumbnails extension may take some time to generate the metadata and thumbnails on your computer.

However, if you are still missing the thumbnails or metadata of your photos after installing the extension on your computer, then there is a high probability that your photos are in some special format that is not supported by the extension of the RAW photo.

In that situation, you need to find the specific photo explorer or image managers that is developed by your camera manufacturer.