[Fix] Windows 10 Automatically Deleting Thumbnails Cache
The automatic deletion of thumbnails cache is one of the most irritating and infamous problems present in Windows operating system. Windows automatically deletes image thumbnails cache on regular basis. So when you open a folder containing image files, Windows doesn’t show instant thumbnails of the image files. Instead it starts creating the thumbnails from scratch which takes some time.
To better understand this issue, let’s take an example. You have a folder containing several image files such as wallpapers, your photos, etc. You open that folder for the first time and Windows creates thumbnails for all image files. These thumbnails are stored in a cache file so that when you open the same folder again, Windows doesn’t need to recreate thumbnails. It shows instant thumbnails by taking them from the cache file just like a web browser cache. But the problem occurs when you open the same folder again after one or more days. You don’t see thumbnails and Windows starts creating the thumbnails again like you have opened the folder for the first time. So the problem is, Windows deletes thumbnails cache regularly and automatically.
It becomes very annoying if you have some folders containing lots of image files and Windows takes some time to create thumbnails.
We have posted a tutorial in past to solve this issue which can be found at following link:
[Fix] Thumbnail Cache Automatic Deletion Problem in Windows
But it seems the solutions given in that tutorial no longer works in Windows 10 operating system. Those fixes work perfectly in previous Windows versions such as Windows 7/8/8.1 but a few readers have reported that the fixes were unable to solve the issue in Windows 10.
So today in this tutorial, we are going to share a new solution for Windows 10 users which works properly and fixes the automatic thumbnails cache problem in Windows 10. Thanks to our reader “Tracy” for sharing this solution.
This solution utilizes a registry tweak. Actually there is a registry key which tells Windows 10 to clear thumbnails cache on regular basis as a part of automatic maintenance process and we need to modify that key to stop Windows 10 from deleting thumbnails cache.
If you are also facing this problem in Windows 10, following steps will help you in fixing this issue:
1. Press “WIN+R” key combination to launch RUN dialog box then type regedit and press Enter. It’ll open Registry Editor.
2. Now go to following key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerVolumeCachesThumbnail Cache
PS: You can copy the above mentioned registry key path and paste it in Registry Editor’s address bar and press Enter key. It’ll directly let you go to the exact key.
3. In right-side pane, you’ll see a DWORD with the name Autorun. It’s value is set to 1 which means Windows 10 will automatically delete thumbnails cache.
4. Double-click on Autorun DWORD and change its value to 0 which will turn off thumbnails cache deletion process.
5. You’ll need to follow the same steps for another key. Now go to following key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREWOW6432NodeMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerVolumeCachesThumbnail Cache
6. In right-side pane, double-click on Autorun DWORD and change its value to 0 similar to above steps.
That’s it. Now restart your computer and Windows will stop deleting thumbnails cache.
NOTE: If you are not familiar with Registry editing and want a ready-made Registry script to do the task automatically, download following ZIP file, extract it and run the extracted REG file. It’ll ask for confirmation, accept it:
Registry Script to Fix Automatic Deletion of Thumbnails Cache in Windows 10