Camera RAW thumbnails in Windows Explorer

SageThumbs 2K shows RAW photos from Canon, Nikon, Sony, Fujifilm, Panasonic, Olympus, Pentax, Leica, Hasselblad, Phase One and others, plus Adobe DNG, as thumbnails in File Explorer.

A Canon CR2 raw photo of pink and red tulips by a stone wall, shown as a thumbnail

What you see

The thumbnail is the preview image stored in the RAW file.
It does not depend on Microsoft's Raw Image Extension: RAW files the Windows codec cannot read still get a thumbnail.
The Details pane and Properties show dimensions, camera, date taken and GPS location, including the GPS position Windows itself leaves blank for RAW.
Date taken and camera are offered as sortable, groupable columns in Explorer.

Limits

In OneDrive and other synced folders, files stored on the PC get thumbnails as anywhere else. Online-only files are left to the cloud app, since nothing is downloaded just to draw a thumbnail.

More you can do

Right-click Rename by date taken, or by camera and date, to batch-rename a shoot from its EXIF.
Sort into folders by date taken moves each photo into a YYYY-MM-DD folder.
Image info lists every EXIF tag: camera, lens, exposure, date, and GPS with a map link.
Convert RAW to JPG, PNG or WebP from the right-click menu.

Extensions this covers

.3fr .arw .bay .cap .cr2 .cr3 .crw .dcr .dcs .dng .drf .erf .fff .iiq .k25 .kdc .mdc .mef .mos .mrw .nef .nrw .orf .ori .pef .ptx .pxn .raf .rw2 .rwl .sr2 .srf .srw .x3f

See every format SageThumbs 2K supports or browse all format guides.

Get SageThumbs 2K

Install it with winget:

winget install LunarWerxs.SageThumbs2K

Or download the installer from GitHub and run it.

Download the installer

Windows 11 and 10, 64-bit, on x64 and Arm. The same page has a portable zip that needs no installing.

Free for personal use

Home, hobby and other non-commercial use is free: every format and every tool. A company, a shop or anyone doing paid work needs a business licence for each PC.

A business licence is US$49 per PC once, with 12 months of updates, or US$2.99 per PC a month. See business licence pricing

Thumbnails not showing?

Windows caches thumbnails, and a file it failed on once stays failed. In SageThumbs, Settings ▸ Advanced ▸ Rebuild thumbnail cache clears the cache and restarts Explorer.
Make sure File Explorer's "Always show icons, never thumbnails" option is off, and that the format is ticked in SageThumbs Settings ▸ File types.
Run st2k doctor in a terminal. It only reads, checks the whole chain, and prints a fix under anything that is wrong.