SageThumbs 2K is a fast, crash-isolated shell extension that renders camera RAW, PSD, HEIC, video, ebooks and comics directly in File Explorer.
Windows ships codecs for a handful of common types. Every other extension is content-sniffed and routed to a pure-Rust decoder, the Windows codecs, or an isolated converter. First match wins.
Thumbnails appear the moment a file lands in a folder. Right-click any supported file for a built-in image toolkit. Open Settings to choose exactly which formats get hooked, and cap size and quality.
RAW shoots, renders, icons and documents preview right in the grid, instead of a wall of identical blank icons.
Convert, resize, rotate, combine to PDF or CBZ, run OCR, pick a colour off the screen, or set any image as wallpaper. In bulk, in parallel, and nothing leaves your machine.
A dark Settings panel matching Windows: toggle any type, cap size and quality, prefer embedded previews, and reorder the menu.
Right-click a selection and Convert… to JPG, PNG, WebP, TIFF and more; set the size, quality and output folder. Whole batches run in parallel, and your originals are never touched.
Select a file in Explorer and press Space for an instant, full-size preview. The macOS-style Quick Look Windows never had, for all the formats it can't open on its own.
It shows any format SageThumbs can decode, and does the things a still image can't:
Source files open syntax-highlighted with line numbers, in the language they're written in. Text in Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Thai reads correctly too: the encoding is detected rather than assumed, and lines wrap without spaces to break on.
There's a checklist of little utilities people reinstall on every Windows box: a thumbnail pack, a converter, a color picker, a screenshot tool, an EXIF viewer. SageThumbs 2K is one shell extension (plus a single st2k.exe) that quietly does all of their jobs.
Thumbnails for the formats Windows ignores (RAW, PSD, HEIC, video, ebooks), crash-isolated so a corrupt file can't hang Explorer.
A built-in large preview handler for 300+ formats, in the reading pane and Open dialogs.
Tap Space on any file for an instant full-size preview, macOS-style Quick Look.New
EXIF, GPS, dimensions and audio tags as sortable Explorer columns and details.
Right-click Convert to ~29 formats (AVIF, JPEG XL, PSD, DDS, EXR), batched across every core.
Right-click Resize presets and Shrink for email, never upscales, keeps your original.
Lossless JPEG rotate and flip, DCT rearrangement with zero re-encode.
A system-wide eyedropper with a 10x loupe; Space copies #RRGGBB from anywhere on screen.
Copy text off your screen: drag a region and the words land on your clipboard, in an editable window so a misread character is fixable before you paste.New
Right-click Strip metadata (EXIF/IPTC/XMP/GPS), losslessly, keeping your ICC profile. Also clears Content Credentials (C2PA), the provenance record ordinary cleaners leave behind, across JPEG, PNG, WebP, SVG, HEIC and AVIF.New
Screen capture that matches an HDR display, tone-mapped from the real high-range image instead of the pale, blown-out copy Windows hands out. Per-monitor, so a mixed setup comes out right.New
Built-in region capture with an annotation editor, quick-save, and a live pixel readout.
Right-click Copy text (OCR), straight to the clipboard, on Windows' own OCR engine.
Upload and copy a share link to a keyless host, batch multi-select, no account.
Combine into PDF or CBZ, natural-sorted, from a folder of scans or pages.
st2k.exe: a full CLI plus an MCP server, so scripts and AI agents get an image toolbox with zero extra installs.
A few honest notes: some exotic formats lean on codecs already in Windows (WIC) or the bundled ImageMagick engine rather than pure Rust, and SageThumbs 2K is what wires all of it into Explorer. Several tools above (PowerToys, Snipping Tool, ShareX) are free too: the point isn't cost, it's not having to assemble and run a dozen of them side by side.
Everything the menu does, st2k.exe does from the terminal. It also speaks MCP, so an AI agent can view any supported format as a real image and act on it.
# render any supported format to an image $ st2k thumbnail photo.cr2 out.png --size 512 # batch a whole folder, in parallel $ st2k batch thumbnail .\raw\ --size 512 rendered 248 files # RAW to PNG, no Photoshop needed $ st2k convert render.psd out.png # expose every format to an AI agent $ st2k --mcp MCP server ready: view, convert, ocr ...
It runs inside explorer.exe, so the bar for trust is high. SageThumbs 2K is built to clear it.
Written in Rust and sandboxed at every Explorer boundary, with a panic guard on each COM call. A broken or hostile file cannot crash File Explorer or reach your system.
Thumbnailing never writes to your files. The toolkit only writes when you ask it to, and it creates new files rather than overwriting the original.
Free for personal use under the PolyForm Noncommercial license, with the full source on GitHub. Read it, audit it, or build it yourself.
SageThumbsSettings.More info then Run anyway. You can also build from source.st2k formats for the exact, live list.Install once. Every RAW, PSD, HEIC, video and comic in your folders just shows up.