PSD thumbnails in Windows Explorer

Install SageThumbs 2K and Photoshop documents (.psd, .psb) show their artwork in File Explorer instead of a plain icon. It reads the preview Photoshop saves inside the file, so Photoshop itself does not need to be installed.

Pixel-art pony and colour swatches from a layered Photoshop PSD file, shown as a thumbnail

What you see

Ordinary icon views use the small preview stored in the document, which is big enough at that size.
A PSD with transparency, such as a removed background, is drawn from its real layers, so it keeps its see-through areas instead of sitting on white.
The Explorer preview pane and the Space-bar Quick preview render the full-resolution artwork whenever the small stored preview is too small for the view.
Documents drawn from their own pixels go through their colour profile, so CMYK, grayscale and Adobe RGB files show the colours Photoshop shows.
Files over 256 MB are never loaded whole and still show their full picture. One saved without Maximize compatibility has its layers flattened instead.

Limits

Small icon views show the preview Photoshop stored, which is usually about 160 pixels across, whatever the size of the artwork.
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 a PSD to convert it to PNG, JPG, WebP, AVIF and more. Convert, Resize and Image info always use the real full-resolution composite.
The Details pane and Properties show the image's dimensions, colour depth and DPI.

Extensions this covers

.psd .psb .psdt .pdd

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.